Dragonfly Delights

After  having a rubbish morning in work caused by awful weather and at one point some thunder and lighting, I was very pleased to take a call from about this superb little creature which as you can see was sitting on someone’s garden gate!

I’ve been really hoping to see one at Radipole over the last week or two after a possible being seen from the north hide. It is of course a Vagrant Emperor. This is a pretty rare insect in the UK but this spring has seen several across the south coast however most sightings locally have remained unconfirmed however there’s no question about this beauty! Their breeding range extends across south Saharan Africa and spreads across to Pakistan though its very migratory so does show up in all sorts of weird places. In fact it’s the only dragonfly species to be recorded in Iceland according my dragonfly book. They are very difficult dragonflies to catch up with in the UK so it may be a very long time before I see another unless this influx continues.