A blog for sightings of Dragonflies and Damselflies in Oxfordshire. To submit records and photos, email stephen_burchemail at yahoo.co.uk.
Photos with maximum resolutions up to 2400 pixels may be provided.
Recorders are encouraged to upload their own sightings to iRecord, but any remaining records will be uploaded at the end of the season.
8 Lesser Emperor!
James Wainscoat
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| Lesser Emperor (c) James Wainscoat |
Wroxton Abbey
Small Red-eyed Damselfly 1 (only 1 definite, but not thoroughly searched for)
Wroxton Quarry
The pool that the Red-veined Darters were recorded ovipositing in earlier in the season is now completely dry.
Lesser Emperor - tandem pair over Bullfield Lake.
Across all lakes there were a minimum of
3 Emperors,
3 Ruddy Darters,
30 Black-tailed Skimmers,
200 Common Blue Damselflies,
60 Red-eyed Damselflies
3 Blue-tailed Damselflies.
Orchard Lake had plenty of Black-tailed Skimmers but few other dragonflies
Brian Walker
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| Black-tailed Skimmer © Brian Walker |
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| Emperor © Brian Walker |
North of the village, Childrey Brook forms a small lake, a corner of which can be viewed from the adjacent FP. SU368886.
Emperor 1m
Blue damsels - too far away to ID
Stephen Burch
I checked both my local sites this morning for Lesser Emperor, without success
Oxford Way storm water ponds, Chalgrove (SU623977):
Very similar to my 16th June visit but an increase in BTS numbers
Stadhampton Meadows LNR (SU594987):
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| Beautiful Demoiselle (female) |
Common Darter 5
Black-tailed Skimmer 11
Broad-bodied Chaser, 1 fem ovipositing
Emperor 3 inc 2 ovipositing females
Lesser Emperor 1 male fly-over
Red-eyed Damselfly 2
Scarce Blue-tailed Damselfly 1
Blue-tailed Damselfly many; inc. forms rufescens, rufescens-obsoleta and violacea
Tess Wright
Video showing Blue-tailed Damselfly "cleaning up" after eating © Tess Wright
Lesser Emperor: 1m along causeway, then tandem pair
Conor Mackenzie, per the WhatsApp Group
Lesser Emperor: c. 8 males and 2 females
Geoff Wyatt
Norfolk Hawker - 1 male seen briefly in flight a couple of times, on one occasion clashing with a Southern Migrant Hawker.
Southern Migrant Hawker - 5 or 6 males patrolling small territories at the very tip of the main lake in the same general area as the Norfolk Hawker.
Red-veined Darter - 3 males. One on the gravel path north of the Queen Pool, and two perched on the vegetation on the western edge. Certainly fewer now and not as active over the water as they were a week or two ago.
Lesser Emperor - 2 males
Small Red-eyed Damselfly - several seen on the floating vegetation in the shallow water near the Fisheries Cottage.
Small Red Damselfly 1m - still present in same location as yesterday
Ian Lewington, per the WhatsApp Group
Midday to 1pm
Lesser Emperor : about 10 individuals on the west side of the pit. They were spending a lot of time patrolling the adjacent grassland, and only coming back to the water occasionally. A pair in tandem landed in front of me, and the female started ovipositing.
Also:
Banded Demoiselle : 1
Common Blue Damselfly : hundreds
Emperor Dragonfly : blue-form female ovipositing
Brown Hawker : 3
Black-tailed Skimmer : 10
Common Darter : 1
David Hastings
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| Lesser Emperor ♂ © David Hastings |
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| Lesser Emperor pair in tandem © David Hastings |
10 - 11.30am
Banded Demoiselle 1
Southern Damselfly 5
Blue-tailed Damselfly 2
Azure Damselfly 2
Small Red Damselfly 2
Emperor Dragonfly 1
Keeled Skimmer 9
Black-tailed Skimmer 6
Common Darter 3
David Hastings
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| Southern Damselfly ♂ © David Hastings |
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| Small Red Damselfly ♂ © David Hastings |
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| Keeled Skimmer ♂ © David Hastings |
Lesser Emperor 2 (pair) - c.SP 45028 48559
Only seen briefly but well enough. After the male caught the female they flew up into the surrounding trees. I waited a little while for them to return but I didn't see them again.
Ruddy Darter 1
Brown Hawker 1
White-legged Damselfly 1:
It unfortunately seems like a very poor year for this species again. I've only seen singles on several recent walks locally. This site on a similar date in 2022 well over 60 were recorded (here).
Grimsbury Reservoir
White-legged Damselfly 1
Brown Hawker 1
Borrow Pit pool, Upper Cherwell Valley
White-legged Damselfly 1
Brown Hawker 1
No Small Red-eyed Damselflies yet.
1 Lesser Emperor SU 57061 85358
Oxonbirder, per the WhatsApp Group.
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| Lesser Emperor ©Oxonbirder |
A lunchtime walk along the Oddington track to 100 acre and along the ditch on west side of 100 acre:
18 Southern Migrant Hawkers mostly flying males evenly spaced along the route. One tandem pair briefly. The pill area is drying out.
Also on Noke pond - approx 60 small red-eyed damselflies (on 3.7.26)
Jeremy Dexter
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| Southern Migrant Hawker in flight © Jeremy Dexter |
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| Southern Migrant Hawker settled © Jeremy Dexter |
Small Red Damselfly! 1 male SU496913
Common Blue Damsels
10+ Blue Tailed Damsels
6 Scarce Blue Tailed Damsels
3 Emperor Dragonflies
1 Lesser Emperor male
Four Spotted Chaser
Black Tailed Skimmers
Common Darter
Wayne Bull
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| Small Red Damselfly © Wayne Bull |
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| Scarce Blue-tailed Damselfly (immature female of Aurantiaca phase) © Wayne Bull |
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| Scarce Blue-tailed Damselfly, male © Wayne Bull |
Brown Hawker 1,
Migrant Hawker 2,
Ruddy Darter 5,
Common Darter 3.
James Wainscoat
Face comparison of the 2 Darters:
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| Common Darter © James Wainscoat |
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| Ruddy Darter © James Wainscoat |
Along the west shore. c. 14:00 - 16:45
10+ Lesser Emperor - in most of the fishing bays, especially the most northerly one. At least one tandem pair occasionally ovipositing. Some very worn already.
Also
Common Blue Damselfly 100s if not 1000s!
Red-eyed Damselfly
Emperor
Black-tailed Slimmer
Common Darter - 1 mature male
Stephen Burch
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| Lesser Emperor - another big crop (very challenging to get onto as moving so fast!) © Stephen Burch |
I have just had some interesting information from Adrian Parr (the BDS Migrant Dragonfly expert) about this year's the ongoing Red-veined Darter influx:
"The RVD influx continues, and I've just heard of counts of 120 + 95 on two of the lakes on Bodmin Moor!! There have been over 470 records (though from slightly fewer sites) this year. I think it's now fair to say it's been Britain's largest ever influx.
Keep an eye out for locally bred immatures, which may start emerging as early as late July. Such individuals rapidly stray from their breeding waters into surrounding grassland, and then ultimately migrate back south.
But virtually nothing is known about the fine detail of all this, and I'm hopeful someone might keep a close eye on one of their breeding sites this year."
Stephen Burch
Beautiful Demoiselle 2
Common Blue Damselfly 20+
Southern Hawker 3
Brown Hawker 4
Black-tailed Skimmer 1
David Hastings
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| Southern Hawker ♂ © David Hastings |
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| Beautiful Demoiselle ♂ © David Hastings |
River cut-off
Small Red-eyed Damselfly 2
Brown Hawker 2
Martin Green per Oxon Dragonfly WhatsApp Group
c. 10:15 - 15:15
10+ Red-veined Darter: Seen in the morning in flight from the north shore by the tree (SP440169), and from the west shore where geese hang out (a pair in tandem briefly). Maybe 4-5 in both locations. Also singles seen later settled on west shore (with Adam Hartley) SP438168 , north shore (under above tree) and east shore (with Gareth Casburn) SP441168. Probably somewhat fewer than last week?
Note these key ID features to distinguish from maturing Ruddy and Common Darters:
Also seen:
Banded Demoiselle
Blue damsels: 100s
Emperor 5+
Brown Hawker (near Fisherman's Cottage)
Black-tailed Skimmer
Stephen Burch
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| Red-veined Darter © Stephen Burch |
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| Red-veined Darter [two image composite] © Stephen Burch |
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| Emperor (west shore) © Stephen Burch |
Late morning visit that overlapped with Steve Burch concentrating on the west shore of the Queen's Pool near the Fishery Cottage (so the usual RVD location). Conditions sunny and warm with a light breeze.
A few red Darter sp. which were probably Red-veined that were mostly briefly views or flying far over the water. One close perched individual was confirmed to be a Red-veined Darter (see photo)
1 Lesser Emperor briefly
Quite a few Emperors, Black-tailed Skimmers and Four-spotted Chasers
100's of blue Damselfly sp. over the water
Adam
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| Red-veined Darter |
This new storm water site with open access is in Didcot, just south of the A4130 link road from the A34. It was described in Ian's initial post back in May - https://oxondragonflies.blogspot.com/2026/05/valley-park-didcot.html.
The OS coords of the main spot he reported then are SU497913.
For this visit, Ian reports that the best area seemed to be the north shore of the eastern pool.
13+ Scarce Blue-tailed Damselflies . 5 males, the rest were tenerals of both sexes - their normal emergence period extends from late May until into July, with a peak late June (Brooks & Lewington, 2002).
15 Blue-tailed Damselflies
2 Four-spotted Chasers
3 Black-tailed Skimmers
3 Emperors
Common Darters and Common Blue Damselflies
Ian Lewington
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| Scarce-blue tailed Damselfly (immature, Aurantiaca phase) © Ian Lewington |
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| Scarce-blue tailed Damselfly (immature, Aurantiaca phase) © Ian Lewington |
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| Scarce-blue tailed Damselfly © Ian Lewington |
100s Blue damselflies,
10 Black-tailed Skimmer,
2 Red-veined Darter
James Wainscoat
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| Red-veined Darter © James Wainscoat |
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| Black-tailed Skimmer © James Wainscoat |
Norfolk Hawker - 1 male in the area reported previously. Clearly defending a territory, chasing a couple of Brown Hawkers. It perches up for long periods out of view so not easy to locate.
Brown Hawker - 3
Ruddy Darter - 5 males
I didn't check for Red-veined Darters on the Queen Pool today.
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| Norfolk Hawker |
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| Brown Hawker |
1 Norfolk Hawker - along the track to the second screen (near the starling viewing point).
Paul Wyeth
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| Norfolk Hawker © Paul Wyeth |
First visit to the Trap Grounds for a while in sunny, post-heatwave conditions.
~6 Small Red-eyed Damselfly
3 Blue-tailed Damselfly
Lots of Azure Damselfly
Brown Hawker
Emperor
Emperor and two Banded Demoiselle along the canal. Also a probable fly-through Silver-washed Fritillary - a rarity for this site!
It's great to have the Small Red-eyed Damsels back again after going AWOL last year. There were some ovipositing pairs so hopefully their future is more secure at this site.
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| Small Red-eyed Damselfly distant record shot (with wrong camera settings to add to the poor quality) |
Following the previous post on this topic, there seems to be some interest in a WhatsApp Group for Oxon Dragonflies, to run alongside, and be complementary to this Blog.
Hence I have setup the Oxon Dragonfly Forum WhatsApp Group. Below is an invite link for those wishing to join (assuming I set it up correctly!):
https://chat.whatsapp.com/CogcYwStSmS2ou1Q1TzY5c
Stephen Burch
Oxfordshire Dragonfly Recorder (VC23).
The initial icon for the group is Gareth Casburn's superb image of a Red-veined Darter at Blenheim:
Red-veined Darters c. 5 on west side of Queen Pool in cool windy conditions
Wayne Bull
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| Red-veined Darter © Wayne Bull |
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| Red-veined Darter © Wayne Bull |
Willow Emerald Damselfly - c8 including a couple of tenerals.
Small Red-eyed Damselfly - c12.
Lesser Emperor - 1m. Flushed from lakeside bushes.
Geoff Wyatt
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| Small Red-eyed Damselfly © Geoff Wyatt |
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| Small Red-eyed Damselfly © Geoff Wyatt |
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| Willow Emerald Damselfly © Geoff Wyatt |
Common Blue Damselfly 250+ across the site, many in tandem, several females ovipositing
Azure Damselfly 1m
Blue-tailed Damselfly 10m
Red-eyed Damselfly 3m plus pair in cop
Emperor 4m 1 fem ovipositing
Four-spotted Chaser 5
Black-tailed Skimmer 30m
Ruddy Darter 1m
Steve Holliday
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| Ruddy Darter © Steve Holliday |
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| Four-spotted Chaser © Steve Holliday |
No RVD but significant numbers of Lesser Emperor. They are becoming almost common:
Pit 3 (SP391050), Pit 4 (SP392049) and Pit 10 (SP394052) - 6 individuals
Dix Pit - West side - at least 10 (nearly every bay/fishing swim seemed to have a LE).
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| Lesser Emperor in flight © Jeremy Dexter |
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| Lesser Emperor perched © Jeremy Dexter |
Red-veined Darter - 20+
Note: the photos were taken on the west side of Queen Pool where all the geese congregate but were seen flying on both sides
Wayne Bull
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| All above: Red-veined Darters © Wayne Bull |
