I had a very early start this morning seeing my sister off back to London, and so took the opportunity afterwards to head off down a very warm Sconce Hills Park for a cup of tea, and to see if there was any nature that was worth investigating.
As it turned out, the nature was more interested in investigating me, because I had only just taken my cup of tea outside, when a huge brown hawker flew right up to me, looked me in the eye, before settling on my arm for a split second with an eerie tickling sensation.
Normally you associate southern hawkers with this sort of behaviour, having a brown behave like this was very strange. After looking me up, it resumed its peculiarly square circuits around the children's park, bronze wings glittering in the sun..
After my tea I went down to the river, where it was another species of dragon that was putting on a display. After being virtually invislble, the lovely red male common darters were out on the river, and being very sporty too. I watched as one individual took a perch on a riverside plant and launched itself like a heat seeking missile at any other male that came within a few metres before returning victorious to his throne.
What he was competing for was going one behind him, by the semi submerged tree trunk that has been a landmark on the River Devon as long as I can remember. A male common darter was supporting a female as she flitted her backside to ovipost her eggs onto a water plant of some kind.
I've seen this done before at Langford, but it such an odd sight you never quite get used to it, I think! The female just hangs there from the tip of the male's abdomen, dipping her bum just below the surface of the water with little flicks. She clearly had a lot of eggs to deposit, because she carried on for ten minutes as a shoal of roach glopped by, blowing bubbles on the surface of the otherwise mirror calm river.
Nature was having a busy day down the park!
Si
All text and images copyright CreamCrackeredNature 11.08.15
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| Some serious bikes here |
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| Two grand each most of these, I'd say |
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| Red arrows gave us a fly by |
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| Marigolds are just going over, but the bees still love them |
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| Feeding away |
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| Still lots of colour |
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| Really big new queen here |
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| Cyclists are off |
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| Where the dragons fought, and loved |
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