Anthropomorphism

Do insects smile? I think they do:

Common Darter, smiling in my garden

Once Upon a Time in a Ditch in Kent

"Birds?", I hear you ask hopefully. "Some kind of rare ditch-dwelling warbler?" Almost right. Another Dragonfly.

I apologise, I thought long and hard about what to do, and then went out on the patch early this morning. This post is already sounding suspiciously similar to yesterday's, so it will come as no surprise that I found nothing. No waders on Alex, and no ducks (I'm hoping for Garganey) on the ponds in the park. Depressed, I headed home to get ready for insects, part of a prearranged plan with Bradders and Roy. Yesterday had been so successful that we had decided that an attempt on the Southern Emerald Damselflys in Kent was in order. These have been twitchable exactly twice - proper rare.

Near the prescribed ditch at Cliffe were some real Dragonfly people, searching for the same thing. One of them had a net and everything. As a birder, I think I can safely say that they are a funny bunch. For a start they only talk in Latin.

"Nos es reprehendo is hic fossum pro Lestes barbarus"
(We are checking this here ditch for Southern Emerald Damselfly)

"Nos non instituo unus etiamnunc. Gero questus punctum"
(We have not found one yet, and are getting pissed off)

Roy understood everything they were saying. He can probably speak latin too, but for the sake of Bradders and I stuck to English. It was hard work, but eventually Roy found one, and shouted out "Quid est illa in fossa!" before remembering who he was with and instead pointing at the ditch. Of couse it was one, a female, and we all saw it well before it vanished. A short while later I relocated it in the same fossa, and pointed out to the ten or so other insect-hunters where it was flying. I was surprised to then see everyone running away from it, heading instead down the side of the ditch. Eh? I thought this was what everyone was here for? But no, grown men and women were running, running and pointing.

"Inviso ut! Aeshna Affinis est!"
(Look, it's a Southern Migrant Hawker!)

Unbelievably, I was now present at the first sighting of Southern Migrant Hawker in Kent for half a century, and I am possibly one of only three people in the country (the other two being Roy and Bradders) to have seen the species in two counties. Fortunatus sum. The Dragonfly people netted the pair briefly, for there were two, in order to confirm the ID. In the hand there was no doubt. Certum est, as they say.

All thoughts of Southern Emerald we forgotten, this was truly exiciting stuff. My Kent Dragonfly list is going great guns! We decided that we had better leave before it all became too much, so bade our farewells - Vale! Eheu fugaces labuntur anni etc. We picked up a Spoonbill on the way out, and then tried a stretch of Downland for some birds more insects. Butterflies mainly, but we also found a couple of day-flying moths that failed to pique Bradders' interest. He'll cave one day, I'm certain of it.

Lector benevole, latine loqui coactus sum

In which I start twitching insects....

Sorry, more insects. I have a weekend without wife or children, and in a cruel twist of fate, it is also without birds. My plan was to go on some kind of photography expedition, or perhaps a mega-twitch, but I never formulated a concrete plan for the former, and the biggie failed to materialise. Hmmm, what to do? The patch, naturally.

So, up at 5am and out. The first bird seen was the White-cheeked Turaco, which I think makes it four days out of the last five, Thursday being the only no-show. As usual it was chuckling to itself, and jumping about the same tree recently vacated by the cat. I've said it before and I'll say it again, great bird! The cat is fine by the way. Once we got it down, I took it with my neighbour to the vets, where both were given a relatively clean bill of health, apart from the neighbour had worms so the vet had to give him a pill. I think I have that the right way round. Here she is by the way, in case you have lost a cat. A lady up the street is currently looking after it, but will only give it back if you can confidently answer a lot of questions about it.



Anyway, bar the Turaco, not a lot doing in Wanstead. Kingfisher on Alexandra Lake early doors, and a Common Tern fishing on the Basin were the only birds of note, so another brilliant use of sleep-time. I had to spend the rest of the morning going to Farnham and back to pick up a new camera bag, but once back I still had no bright ideas. Paul had called last night and said he might be twitching a Dragonfly today, would I like to come? Twitch a Dragonfly, you must be out of your mind?! What a crazy notion, no chance, have fun though.

I joined the others at Rainham, where we all got into Bradders' Subaru and headed off to the secret site. It isn't much of a secret any more... The target was a Southern Migrant Hawker, of which just six had been recorded in the UK before. In the world of Dragonflies, I am led to believe that this about as mega as it gets. The twitch was an outstanding success, and we added numbers seven through about fourteen to the British list, thus over doubling it. In the world of birding, this is the equivalent of finding a small flock of White-tailed Plovers in a field, including some fledged chicks. Now I'm not much into Dragonflies, so it did feel a bit odd to be seeing a species that almost all of those who are into them had never seen, but they'll get their chance. They're probably making plans for tomorrow even as I type.

Unfortunately I forgot my camera, so you don't get to see what one looks like.

Not really.









Pretty smart huh? As insects go, fairly impressive, but still just a Dragonfly though, so I'm not getting too excited. My feet remain firmly on the ground. Although I don't keep a list of Dragonflies I've seen, it was a tick for me, as it was for Paul. My list, if I kept one, would be 17, whereas his is 45. That's if he kept one of course, but he hates lists so it's unlikely.

At the same time as the Southern Migrant Hawkers, I also saw Small Red-eyed Damselfly, and Scarce Emerald Damselfly, both of which were new for me. Roy was with us too, and pointed all these out, as I didn't have a clue. I did not realise that he is a Dragonfly fanatic, but I can now testify that he really is. Here, have a photo of the Emerald. And a yellow one, a female Ruddy Darter I think. Might be a Common Darter of course, no doubt people will put me right.




So, I can now say I have twitched an insect. Well, I suppose I twitched Shaun's Lime Hawk Moth, so I have now twitched two insects. I also saw a Blair's Mocha Moth at Longstone's Cafe on Scilly, but I was there to twitch the cake. It showed well. Briefly.