Scarce chaser

Today I took a group from the Rutland Natural History Society to the Nene Valley, as a follow-up to a talk I gave in March. We had a short walk along the old river course at Castor Station, and then stopped to lok at the many interesting things Pete had found in the river, including Spined Loach, Stone Loach, Bullheads and a good range of water snails and mussels. There weren't many dragonflies about, mostly Banded Demoiselles, but one of the group spotted this freshly emerged male Scarce Chaser.

As its name suggests, this is a very local species of slow-flowing rivers and floodplains in eastern and southern England, which seems to be expoanding its range a bit at the moment. The Scarce Chaser has a synchronised emergence usually commencing during the second half of May - this is the first I've seen this year. The immature males are orange, but will develop a blue pruinescence on the abdomen a week or two after emergence. This one was very fresh, and hadn't even developed the characteristic dark spots at the end of the wings.

After having explored the river margin, I took a smaller group to a nearby flood-meadow, where we were delighted to find flowering meadow saxifrage and plenty of early marsh-orchids, as well as two non-flowering stands of tubular water-dropwort, a vulnerable species in the UK. A perfect walk in perfect weather! And my leg hardly hurt at all...