Mike's Natural Musings: Damselflies and Dragonflies emerge at Messingham Sand Quarry.

Wednesday, 7 May 2014

Damselflies and Dragonflies emerge at Messingham Sand Quarry.

Although I was going to catch up with a few things at home, the weather yesterday was too good not to be out so I packed a quick lunch and headed the Freelander towards the Lincolnshire Wildlife Trust reserve of Messingham Sand Quarry. This has the reputation for being the premier site for dragonflies and damselflies in the county and is part of the Lincolnshire coversands. The reserve has been created following sand and gravel extraction; there is a series of lagoons surrounded by woodland and a small area of heathland. As well as dragon and damselflies the reserve is good for butterflies and over 180 bird species have been seen here. Flowers are good and the reserve supports 6 orchid species. It is the only place that I have seen the unusual water plant, bogbean, which I photographed on this visit. As usual, I followed the excellent visitors path around the reserve making two slow circuits with lunch in between. It was good to see that there had been a mass emergence of damselflies and I saw and photographed azure, common blue and blue-tailed. I saw my first dragonfly of the season: a hairy hawker, although it wasn't stopping to have its portrait taken. Butterflies were plentiful with brimstone, speckled wood, green veined white and orange tip being on the wing, and I managed to photograph the single small copper that I saw. There were good displays of cowslips and meadow saxifrage with some cuckoo flower and the small, protected are of petty whin which was in flower. Marsh marigolds were nearly at the end of their season.

Another excellent day out in beautiful Spring weather.

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