Sunday 18 July 2010

Scarce (but not Southern) Emeralds at Cliffe

Spent about three hours at Cliffe Pools this afternoon, looking for the few Southern Emerald damselflies reported recently. This is a very rare species in the UK, with the first record as recently as 2002 on one of my old patches – Winterton Dunes. A ‘twitchable’ colony was at Sandwich Bay in 2004.

Unfortunately, neither I nor the other Lestes hunters could find any, though up to three had been seen this morning. The Scarce Emeralds were considerably compensation though – I’ve never seen so many before, with approaching 100 on a short stretch of club rush lined ditch.

scarce_emerald1

scarce_emerald_closeup

And now onto a new branch of natural history for the blog… I’m reliably informed that this is a Lesser Marsh Grasshopper. Thanks H!

grasshopper

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