Quick splash and dash

A quick splash and dash today at Eyeworth Pond, with the specific aim of seeing small red-eyed damsels. 

When we arrived, there was zero odo activity, nada, zilch ...

But then the sun came through the clouds, it got clearly warmer, and a first common blue damsel made his appearance.

Not long after, a female emperor started ovipositing.

And it didn't take long for male emperors to appear. Funny to see two male emperors chasing each other, but as soon as a brown hawker appeared, they forgot all about their spat and started chasing the brown hawker together. The enemy of my enemy is my friend, right?

Meanwhile, on the water lily leaves, red-eyed damsels were staking out their territories. 

And we were pleased to see a small red-eyed damsel as well!

Having seen the small red-eyed damsel, we decided to take a walk across Howen Bottom to the north of the pond. Loads of holly blues, a few graylings, and a small tortoiseshell! First one of the year for me!

When I was a kid, small tortoiseshells were the most common butterfly species, and now I'm glad to see one once or twice a year ....

Anyway, here are today's tables, combining the butterflies we saw around the pond and on the heathland (one = 1; few = 2-4; several = 5-9; many = 10+):

Butterfly House, Portsmouth

A truly autumnal day today, wet and windy, so we decided to go butterflying! Not as crazy as it sounds: today's butterflying was indoors ...

Portsmouth's Butterfly House provided us with a wealth of tropical American butterflies! Variable crackers, malachites, blue-frosted banners, owl butterflies, swallowtails, several species of longwings, ...

... and even a morpho, even though quite tattered!

But my absolute favourite was the smallest, and, you could argue, least-coloured species: glasswings. There were maybe 40-50 of them flitting about, and I totally fell in love with them. So please indulge me when I include just a few of the many pictures I took of these exquisite little jewels.

I even had a few land on my hand!!

Crockford Bottom

We went back to Crockford Bottom today with a very clear target in mind: search the drier parts of the heathland for grayling. But of course, there is no way we could ignore the stream itself. And that stream basically gave us all the usual suspects, among which were beautiful demoiselle, southern damselfly, small red damselfly and golden-ringed dragonfly.

On to the heathland, and we were welcomed by a small copper.

And then a grayling, doing what a grayling does best: fly up, land and then become almost totally invisible ... But mission achieved!

Here are today's tables (one = 1; few = 2-4; several = 5-9; many = 10+):

Ober Water

We set out for Ober Water with two specific species to target: white-legged damselfly and small red damselfly, neither species we had seen so far this year. 

Roaming the boggy heathland, it didn't take us long to see our first white-legged damsels, both females:

Following a few more females, we also saw a male:

So first target species done!

But no such luck with small damsels, even though we saw many in this area last year. We scoured the heather and bog myrtle for hours, but no small red damsels .... 

We had resigned ourselves to not seeing one as we walked back to the car, but just as we reached the car park, I spotted a small piece of suitable habitat: boggy heathland with plenty of bog myrtle. Worth checking out? We did, and saw no small red damsels. Until the very last bush of bog myrtle, at the edge of the boggy heathland. 

First one, then a second, and then another one: three female small red damsels!

They really made us work for it today, but that made it feel like a real reward! Despite the focus being on these two damsels, we also recorded the butterflies we saw, but nothing special there. Here are today's tables (one = 1; few = 2-4; several = 5-9; many = 10+):

Houghton Lodge Gardens

For some reason, we'd never visited Houghton Lodge Gardens, even though it's only about half an hour drive from home. Time to remedy that!

In terms of butterflies, the planted borders were very attractive to them.

We saw masses of red admirals, peacocks and commas.

The Japanese-style pond gave us our first golden-ringed dragonfly of the year ...

... and walking along the river Test, we saw loads and loads of banded demoiselles.

Throughout the day, there was a bit of a contest in terms of numbers of butterfly species and damseldragonfly species, but the butterflies were victorious in the end: 14 vs 11. Here are the tables (one = 1; few = 2-4; several = 5-9; many = 10+):