Baulking & Shellingford: 29 August

With the glorious bank holiday weather this afternoon, it was time to switch back into dragonfly mode especially as the season is coming to a close. I was also keen to try out my new 100-400 zoom lens on dragonflies for the first time, after it had worked rather well for the Little Stints last weekend.

First of all, I headed to Baulking Pit to see what that had to offer - not somewhere I have tried much before for Odonata. This was notable for the the unusual sight of a couple of Spitfires performing a flying display for the White Horse Show in nearby Uffington! Less welcome was a proliferation of notices telling people to keep out and stick to the public footpaths only.

Around the pit, there was quite an impressive collection of late season dragonflies to be seen, with masses of Common Blue Damsels, one late Black-tailed Skimmer and 20+ of both Migrant Hawkers and Common Darters. Unfortunately, there didn't seem to be much scope for photos here.

Nearby Shellingford Pit was again desperately in need of more water - I just hope the best pool, which is very shallow, doesn't dry out completely before the autumn rains arrive. Despite the low water levels, there were still a few Small Red-eyed Damsels around, plus several Migrant Hawkers and Common Darter. The great thing about this site is that it can be really good for photography, and today was no exception, so there were several opportunities to try out the new 100-400 lens, as I had hoped. Unusually for this site, unfortunately the Migrant Hawkers were not obliging for flight shots.

Migrant Hawker - the upper image is a crop of the lower one.

Common Darter