It was a red-letter day on Thursday for one of our regular visitors, although he didn't realise quite how eignificant his sighting was until he posted his photos late on Friday evening. I'll let Les take up the story himself.
"I had decided to spend on Thursday a day looking around Minsmere for the dragon- and damselflies, as I do this every year while the bird population is quiet. I started the day at the pond near the visitors' centre and spent a few hours there with a friend, as it is a good place to find dragon- and damselflies. I then walked a route around the site, along the North Wall up and onto the dunes. I did not find much, so then went on and over the sluice, along what I call the south path to South Hide, and Wildlife Lookout. Again, not much to see.
"As I passed Wildlife Lookout there were a few dragonflies about, namely southern hawkers, so I proceeded along the path and then I noticed a gap had been cleared on the left in the margins with a Bittern sign in it, so I stopped there. After a few minutes I saw something flying around; a darter, very red in colour. I waited for it to land and took a few photos, then it flew off again, then returned, so I grabbed a few more photos.
"I did not process the photos until Friday evening late and posted them on Twitter. It was only later I realised they were not the same darter as people were on Twitter were trying to contact me to say that some photos were of a scarlet darter, not a red-veined darter as I had originally thought."
Scarlet darter by Les Cater
Little did Les know, at the time, the excitement that this was to cause when news finally broke on Saturday morning. Red-veined darter was an exciting enough find - I've not heard any other reports of this increasingly regular migrant on the reserve this summer. Scarlet darter, though, was in a different league altogether. Not only was it the first ever Suffolk record, but probably only the 13th one ever seen in the UK! Unfortunately for the would be dragonfly twitchers, there have been no subsequent sightings of either of these rare dragonflies, for now...
Given the trend for warmer summer, scarlet darter is likely to become a more regular visitor to the UK, much like the bee-eaters that are breeding in Norfolk this year. They may, eventually, start to colonise, following in the footsteps (or wingbeats) of other recent arrivals like willow emerald and small red-eyed damselflies (both of which can be seen in the same ditch or at the pond).
Willow emerald damselfly
As Les mentioned, birdwatching is a bit of a challenge at the moment, so it's well worth switching your attention to insects, as many visitors are. Butterflies continue to attract a lot of interest, especially silver-washed fritillary, purple hairstreak and grayling, and a hummingbird hawkmoth proved popular on the buddleias this week. Digger Alley remains popular too.
Hummingbird hawkmoth
Of course, there are birds to spot too. Although numbers are low on the Scrape, there is still a good variety, including common and Sandwich terns, little gulls, common and green sandpipers, common and spotted redshanks, ruffs, snipe, dunlins and curlew sandpipers, and, of course, avocets. At least three great egrets remain at Island Mere, where bitterns, hobbies and marsh harriers continue to be seen regularly and several great crested grebes remain on the mere itself. It's also good to see coal tits, marsh tits and nuthatches returning to the visitor centre feeders.