North Yorkshire to Snowdonia

Over the weekend me and my uncle went down to the Midlands and a few sites in Wales looking for Butterflies and Dragonflies. On Friday evening we went to Catterick in North Yorkshire, where a drake Ring-necked Duck was present with a flock of Tufted Ducks.

The first place we went to on Saturday was Barkbooth Lot in Cumbria where we failed to find any Downy Emeralds, but we found a female Beautiful Demoiselle next to a small stream. Next to Cheshire where the only dragonflies we saw were about 5 Banded Demoiselles. Before we found somewhere to camp we decided to have a look at nearby Prees Heath to try and find some Silver-studded Blues. It took a while but we did find a few eventually. A Hobby also flew over us while we were there.

The next morning we went to a place on Anglesey called Porth Eilian to look for the first summer male Common Rosefinch which had been present there for the past few days. After about an hour we got a view of it as it gave it's distictive song from the top of a tree. The main reason we came to Wales was to try and see the Scarce Blue-tailed Damselfly, though after chechking one known site for them all we could find was a Hairy Dragonfly. Luckily we did know of another place where you could find them in Snowdonia. Almost as soon as we arrived we found an immature female of the form aurantica. Over the next hour we found another male as well as a few Keeled Skimmers.

Small Pearl-bordered Fritillary

Beautiful Demoiselle

Silver-studded Blues

Common Rosefinch record shot

Immature female Scarce Blue-tailed Damselfly of the form aurantica

Male Scarce Blue-tailed Damselfly

Eclipse drake Ring-necked Duck (bottom left)