Odometer: August 2015

With a fine day forecast, I cleared the decks of what I was supposed to be doing, parked the car at Houton and caught the morning ferry to the island of Hoy, Orkney's Dragonfly Central. My plan was to walk from Lyness up to Wee Fea, checking any likely pools on the way for dragons and damsels. I'd been given a few tips of where to look for odes by a Field Club colleague (thanks, Brian) and through some photographs posted on Facebook by a Hoy resident (thanks, Betty).

Betty also offered to meet up with me later in the day, which she duly did, and kindly chauffeused me to various points of the island, which I would've been unable to visit on foot in the time available before the return ferry.

The bare statistics of the day show that we saw 6 of the 8 species resident on Hoy, with Black Darter by far the most numerous. We noted breeding behaviour at 5 of the 6 sites visited, including pairs in tandem, pairs in cop, ovipositing, exuviae and maiden flights of newly-emerged dragons.

What those numbers don't show are the intangible effects of the best day's odo-ing I've experienced in a long while...

Wing clatter! Oh how I've missed the sound of wing clatter, as vegetation or other dragons are raked by dragon flight. And the gentle buzz (both physical and mental) of a large hawker whizzing past my ear at close range. And whilst neither of us could capture on camera a female Common Hawker which landed on my knee, my personal odometer went off the scale.

So, it's a huge vote of thanks to Betty for a most enjoyable day, and here's a few pics from the trip...