Our Wild Things columnist Eric Brown discovers rare dragonflies which defied dismal weather to occupy the ditches, grassland and reedbeds of Bexley's premier nature reserve during damp July. Last Year's sizzling July has been consigned to memory and replaced by one of the most dismal summer months for years. The hottest, driest July in Britain for 200 years has been succeeded by the wettest July since 2009. The 2023 version was actually cooler than June for the first time in more than half a century.
Luckily much of our wildlife survived being buffeted by regular, unseasonal cloudbursts. Local naturalist Bernie Weight braved dodgy weather forecasts to capture some fantastic dragonfly photographs at Crossness Nature Reserve on the Abbey Wood/Belvedere border. Manager Karen Sutton confirmed the appearance of a Norfolk hawker dragonfly on a dipping pond by the Great Breach Lagoon was a first sighting for the superb reserve which often hosts unusual birds and insects.
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This nationally rare dragonfly, classified as endangered and legally protected by the Wildlife and Countryside Act (1981), is spreading from its stronghold in the Norfolk Broads and north-east Suffolk. It favours slow-flowing, reed-fringed ditches and ponds, so Crossness offers perfect habitat for potential breeding.
One of only two brown hawkers in Britain, both sexes of the Norfolk hawker have green eyes and a yellow triangular mark at the top of the abdomen. The other species – the brown hawker – has golden-brown wings, and small blue and yellow (male) or yellow (female) markings absent in the Norfolk hawker.
The scarce lesser Emperor dragonfly was seen near the Great Breach Lagoon and identified by the blue colouration near the top of the abdomen. It is smaller and duller than the common Emperor.
Bernie also photographed a southern migrant hawker, once a rare vagrant from Europe but now resident in Kent and Essex and starting to move north.
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If you visit Crossness, keep an eye open too for scarce chaser which has been seen five kilometres east at Crayford Marshes and is a first sighting for the London borough of Bexley. Crossness could be next on its route. Karen asks that visitors spotting any of the rare species mentioned above should inform her or pen details into a logbook kept in the reserve hide.
Good hunting !
Further reading: Britain's Dragonflies by Dave Smallshire and Andy Swash published by Princeton University Press price £17.99
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