This year the poor weather has hit Dragonflies particularly badly. Because spring weather is so erratic, spring Dragonflies such as Four-spotted Chasers, tend to synchronise their emergence to maximise the chance of finding a mate. However, this year, Four-spotted Chasers were very few. In fact, I have only seen one on the reserve. Could it be that the Dragonflies perished as they tried to emerge ?
Yesterday, we found the answer as we cleared reed from the southern part of the southern dragonfly pond. We were doing this to try and conserve the rarest plant we have at Saltholme, although it's not really a plant at all. It is in fact an alga, called a Stonewort. We have two species of Stonewort in the dragonfly ponds, Common Stonewort, which is not really that common, and Opposite Stonewort, which is very rare in the north. Stoneworts colonise new alkaline water bodies but then die out as other vegetation establishes. Management for Dragonflies ensures there is always open water for the Stoneworts. Reed is highly invasive, and rather bizarrely, spreads much further in dry conditions. So we took advantage of the very low water levels to try and remove some.
As we worked, we noticed two things, firstly that the wet mud was flying around much more than we anticipated:
Linda gets a face full. Still, she fared better than Fiona, who almost submerged.
The other thing we noticed was a number of full size Four-spotted Chaser nymphs in the water.
There shouldn't be any full sized nymphs in the water now, as they should have emerged in May. So, like tadpoles often do in adverse conditions, the Dragonflies delay their emergence until the following year.
So the answer to the question, "where are all the Dragonflies ?" ....................still in the water.