Not only did I spot a Small Red Damselfly but then went on to see bloody well loads of them!
I have only seen the odd one here and there, two or three up until today. But I saw several dozen and never seen them in this spot before!
In fact this spot seems to throw up at least two oddities every year and then there is always one or two things you notice. You also notice things not appearing too...like this visit, Southern Marsh Orchids (Dactylorhiza praetermissa) had their flower heads up. Except there were quite a few but closely bunched together, in a spot I do not normally see many and no sign of the Early Marsh Orchid either?!
EDIT:
It is funny as I forgot to mention that while riding around after spotting these I wondered if there were factors at play here with them like there are with amphibians. Take newts, now I have no doubt that everyone thinks that newts just live in a pond. You have a pond. You have newts in the water. But there is a lot more to it than that.
At the age of 13 to 14 I realised that our own three species of newts had preferences for both ponds themselves and even the areas within a pond. Smooth Newts (previously Triturus vulgaris and now the family name is Lissotriton or something else lol) like to be up in the weeds at the edges of ponds or mid water which is why they are often seen. Palmate Newts, going with Lissotriton helveticus here, like to rummage around in the bottom at the edges of ponds or a bit deeper. Crested Newts (Triturus cristatus) on the other hand like to be in deeper ponds in the middle, preferably 3 or 4 feet, though this is not true of The Southern Italian Crested Newts which can be seen courting in clear water on the edges of lakes in full sun. Also Crested Newts preference changes depending on the time of day and the weather. It is is the middle of the night or raining heavily enough they will venture to the edges of their ponds.
Now to compliment this I will mention one of my favourite newts and in fact favourite amphibians of all time and since a kid adds a nice and unusual spin on all this. The Alpine Newt, Messotriton alpestris, has a male that is blue with a low yellow and black barred crest. Sound amazing? Well it gets better as around the head, eyes lips and running down the sides to the base of its tail is a silvery band peppered with tiny round spots! It gets better still as on its flanks and directly below this silvery band is a turquoise strip with no spots running from the front legs to the back. Then there is the belly which is normally a uniform yellow to orange-red which can be uniform on the throat or itself peppered with silvery edge spots There are at least 8 or 10 different types, subspecies, so there are variations on all this. But there is no confusing this with any other newt, trust me!
Now something sounding so fantastically exotic in colour you would be forgiven for thinking comes from some tropical country somewhere? The truth is quite the opposite and in fact there are no newts found in tropical climates, sub-tropical at best with the Japanese Swordtailed Newt, Cynops ensicauda. Alpine Newts have their name for a reason...they like mountains and they like cold. They also like just about any pond and any part of the pond once they are in it. On approaching the waters edge many newts have been known to skirt the edge, even walking up and down it before entering but Alpine Newts dive straight in. The only times they do not is when they have decided to stay aquatic and remain in the pond all winter! They are one of only two of the European newt species where the larvae can metamorphose and stay aquatic. Meaning you can keep them at all stages of their lives in an aquarium quite happily. Most other metamorphosed newts would drown if you tried that. Except the Banded Newt (umm Ossotriton (?) vittatus).
There is one thing that Alpine Newts do not like, however, and that is too much sunlight combined with heat. So a shaded pond is better unless it never gets hot where you live. This can be deadly to them.
So back to the Small Red Damselflies and we have had a wet Spring...AGAIN...but with not constant rain and a few days of sun here and there. The water levels are higher at my sites than they have been since I started visiting there. So I wondered if the sudden burst of Small Red Damselflies has something to do with that like the newts? Amphibians can move about freely and quickly but if a batch of aquatic insect larvae are dug in around the very edges of a pond that then drops its levels down below it for a few years the numbers drop?
In this case maybe the Small Red Damselflies were there already and had been at higher numbers previous to me starting to visit it regularly six years ago?
Those are the little details about animals and plants that they do not explain and often do not think about. I could explain dozens and dozens of things like this regarding different areas of animals from every corner of the globe! I have been able to do this since I was about ten or twelve years of age and why I get so annoyed when people talk rubbish about animals on TV, it does them no good at all. It is also why I get furious when a park authority badly manages a wildlife reserve. Especially if they get paid vast sums of money for it!!
END EDIT
Mad. Well unless you have accepted my long talked about theory of the place...and the Lea Valley Park Authority?
Anyway here are a few photos of the Small Red Damselfly and a couple of videos ...
No comments:
Post a Comment