Last weekend we spent a day with the Kent county recorder of Dragonflies and Damselflies. Kent is the best place in the country to see a wide variety of these amazing creatures and the weather was sunny, hot and calm which was exactly right. This was a Naturetrek day trip and we were a small group of only four which was the perfect number.

Dragonflies are amazing creatures and considered to be the most successful predators in the animal kingdom. Their powerful wings, agile flight with all four wings moving independently, and precise vision with each compound eye made up of at least 20,000 lenses, mean that they have more than a 95% success rate when pursuing their prey.

Damselflies are similar to dragonflies but are smaller, slimmer and a lot less powerful, folding their wings along their body at rest, unlike dragonflies who hold their wings away from their body.

We started the day at Westbere Lake to the east of Canterbury, where we pottered around the ditches and dykes before making our way south to the banks of the Great Stour river.

There were quite a few different species of damselfly to be seen there.

We learnt that blue-tailed damselfly females come in five different colour forms and we enjoyed ourselves trying to spot all of these. Clockwise from top left: infuscans (with a green thorax), typica (a blue one), rufescens (orange) which matures to rufescens-obsoleta (not pictured) and violacea (violet):

The banded demoiselle is a most beautiful damselfly:

We saw several species of dragonfly there as well. There were numerous scarce chaser dragonflies:

We also saw female scarce chasers but my photos weren’t great. Dave, however, got this photo of a female scarce chaser in Dorset a fortnight ago:

Our guide found us several scarce chaser exuvia. The aquatic dragonfly nymph spends one or two years developing before climbing up some vegetation and out of the water. The adult then emerges by bursting out of the thorax, leaving the empty shell – the exuvia – clinging to the plant:

Hairy dragonfly were patrolling just above the water surface:

If you are wondering why it is called hairy, you can see its hairy thorax below:

The Norfolk hawker is a rare and red-listed dragonfly which, until recently, was restricted to the Norfolk Broads in the UK. However, this species has been expanding its range and there is now a population of these lovely brown dragonflies with their bright green eyes in Kent. We saw several at Westbere:

Dave spotted what is very probably a Norfolk hawker exuvia across the water of the dyke:

Whilst we were on the look out for dragonflies and damselflies, we inevitably spotted some other things as well. The dyke was packed full of beautiful fish with red fins. I know very little about freshwater fish but think these must be rudd:

This red and black froghopper is Cercopis vulnerata:

A beautiful Helophilus pendulus hoverfly:

A green drake mayfly, Ephemera danica, was lying dead on a leaf. The life span of the adult phase of a mayfly’s life is four days at the most:

A downlooker snipefly, Rhagio scolopaceus, is a predator that catches smaller insects in flight:

This is a stretch spider, probably Tetragnatha extensa although there are several similar species. Commonly found on vegetation near water:

Having finished at Westbere Lake, we decided to move location to Sandwich Bay Bird Observatory (SBBOT) where they have recently dug some sandy pools which have become a stronghold for Britains rarest damselfly, the dainty damselfly. This species was historically only found at a site in Essex but was lost there after terrible flooding in spring 1953. It was then considered an extinct species in Britain until some more were found at Elmley on the Isle of Sheppey in Kent in 2010. Another fragile population was discovered during a bioblitz at Sandwich Bay in 2019 but numbers have improved significantly at The Bay since SBBOT dug these new pools:

We found large numbers of dainty damselflies at Sandwich Bay. In fact there were so many that we were becoming quite blasé about these incredibly rare creatures.

Our guide found us a dainty damselfly exuvia as well:

He had recently found scarce blue damselfly at these pools but, despite extensive searching, he couldn’t spot any this time.

We found some mating black-tailed skimmers there. The pair were demonstrating how the legs of the female rub the blue from the abdomen of the scarce chasers that we had seen earlier:

The female black-tailed skimmer once they had parted:

Back in 2017 we saw a female red-veined darter laying her eggs into one of our ponds in the meadows:

This was exciting because, although this species is a frequent migrant to the UK and breeding is regularly seen, the population doesn’t seem to have become stable in this country yet. However, our big dragonfly and damselfly day last weekend finished with a grand finale when we noticed two of these male red-veined darters patrolling over one of the Sandwich Bay pools and regularly coming to rest on the sand at the side. They were in very fresh condition and our guide thought that they had probably emerged there rather than migrated in:

The day was hot and tiring but also very rewarding and enjoyable. By the end of it, the group had managed to see fourteen species:

Dragonflies: Norfolk Hawker, Scarce Chaser, Emperor, Broad Bodied Chaser, Hairy Dragonfly, Red-veined Darter and Black-tailed Skimmer

Damselflies: Banded Demoiselle, Variable, Azure, Blue tailed, Large Red, Red eyed, Common Blue and Dainty Damselfly

Several of these species were new to us and we have come away with so much more understanding and appreciation of these wonderful creatures.