Here Be Dragons: 13-08-13

Editor's note - you will find a very special addition at the bottom of this week's entry. Anita's 6 year old grand-daughter, Charlotte, has written a blog related story. Her brother, Tom, may also send us a tale. He has, apparently, already embarked on chapter one so watch this space!

This week was a real treat - no work to do! Instead seven of the NCVs attended a dragonfly training day run by David Alred from the Wharefdale Naturalists Society (see the following link for their website: http://www.wharfedale-nats.org.uk/11.htm ). 

David started the day in the Pateley Council Chambers with a slide show of wonderful photos to illustrate his very interesting and informative talk about dragonflies. During this time the love life of the dragonfly was a recurring theme. It was hard core stuff, even for seasoned NCVs who are used to seeing nature in the raw.

All kinds of facts were passed on. Did you know, for example, that:

• there are 6500 species of dragonflies in the world, 20 of which can be found in the north of England? 
• an adult 'Hawker' can weigh in at 900mg and has a thorax the size of a blackberry?
• young dragonflies are patterned but their colouring doesn't develop for a couple of weeks?
• dragonflies can take up to three years to get the the adult flying stage but are then dead within about four weeks?

For those readers who are interested you can find out all about dragonflies by visiting the BBC Nature site via http://www.bbc.co.uk/nature/life/Dragonfly.

At about 12:15pm we set off to see the real thing flying around the ponds at Timble Ings. It was great - the weather was just right to tempt the dragons out to perform for us and we saw hundreds of them. We tried to photograph different specimens but ended up with more photos of pond water and reeds than dragonflies, as they tended not to keep still for very long. Quite how David manages to photograph them so well is beyond me. Below are some photos of our afternoon out...... enjoy!

 First of all the most important part of the day - the NCVs have 

some lunch before they go hunting for dragons.

Ros K. decided her ankles needed an airing.

Ros E. was sure there had been 

a banana there a minute ago.

Will demonstrates the effectiveness of his new contact lenses. 

He is able to see Pat's feet from an impressive distance away.

My mistake - he was just taking a close up of a shield bug.

And here it is (A Forest Bug by name)

 The intrepid dragon hunters have to negotiate a raging torrent.

Pat decides to wait and see what happens to 

Anita before committing to the dragon quest.

David strides out and leads the way to the first pond.

He has the uncanny knack of seeing things that normal 

humans would not notice. He regularly stopped and used

 his handy walking stick as a pointer.

Many dragons tempted us very close to the 

water's edge by their noisy fluttering in the reeds.

We did manage to get some half decent photos of these beautiful creatures.....

Two damselflies

Two damselflies getting friendly

Two dragonflies getting equally friendly

An  Emerald Damselfly 

 

A female Common Hawker 

 

A Black Darter.....

.... and a Large Red Damselfly which landed on Anita's arm

 We also saw lots of butterflies of various kinds. This one shut its wings just after being photographed and changed completely as a result.....

 Now you see me.....

Now you don't!

Here was a beauty, basking in the afternoon sun.

This fellow has some way to go before gaining his wings.

Howie and Ros E. watch as a dead damselfly 

sails below them in the stream.

Off to pond number 2 where we found lots of 

empty nymph cases such as the one below ....

Nobody at home any more 

(this empty case was the inspiration for Charlotte's story below)

A newly emerged adult, wings still very shiny in the sun.

And finally .... on the walk back to the cars here was a 

male Common Hawker just asking to be snapped.

Many thanks to David Alred for a great day.

Now - look below to read 6 year old Charlotte's tale of a very particular dragonfly......

Once upon a time there was a dragonfly who lived in a pond and he was called Drooling. His friend was a spider and his name was Spinner. One day he was stuck, he couldn't climb out and he was going to Spinner's that day.

Meanwhile, Spinner was waiting for Drooling. So Spinner got in his car and attached a trailer and he packed a web and a boat. WIT-A-WOOSH! He was gone in his Spider MHE4 [Note to Nana: this is the name of his car]. When he got there he did a ginormous leap but got to the other side. Now they were both stuck, Drooling on one side and Spinner on the other. 

Now along came a tiger and leaned across and his hand just got to the other side and Spinner climbed on and got to the other side safely to the dragonfly, Drooling. They lived happily ever after with the Tiger.

Spinner, Tiger and Drooling live happily ever after.

I think you will agree - this is an excellent story to add to our blog. Charlotte is a talented writer and a very good artist. She will go far in the literary world!

Ros E.