Dragon flies rare this Summer due to unseasonable weather
Kildare Wildlife Watch
I am sure you will agree the summer we have just experienced has not been the best, lots of overcast days and few days that reached above 20 degrees celcius.
Have you also noticed that this summer that there has been fewer invertebrates (an animal without a backbone). How often this summer did you have to open the kitchen window to let a wasp or blue bottle return to the outdoors?
Last week I commented to my colleagues that I had finally seen a dragonfly this summer. I was fortunate to capture, on camera, a common darter dragonfly in the wildlife gardens of the Bog of Allen Nature Centre.
They can be difficult to photograph as dragonflies are carnivores, and they spend much of their time in flight hunting for other invertebrates to feed on. Ireland has 14 resident dragonfly species with a further five vagrant dragonfly species.
A vagrant species means an animal that is not usually found in a particular geographic area, but has wandered in. Some examples of vagrant species that made national headlines include in 2021 when a walrus arrived along the coast of Cork some, 2,500km away from its usual Arctic habitat, or this summer when the North-American yellow-crowned night heron appeared along a river in Belcarra, Co. Mayo.
Dragonflies can be identified by having large compound eyes, two pairs of strong transparent wings, some with spots, and elongated bodies. As its name suggests the common darter is relatively common.
The males are dull red to red orange in colour while the females are a yellow to deep brown in colour. A similar coloured dragonfly is the ruddy darter, but you can distinguish between these two dragonflies as the common darter has a pale stripe on its legs, which the ruddy darter does not have. You can watch for the common darter in your community into November.
As they lay their eggs in water the best place to observe not only the common darter, but a variety of other dragonfly species is around wetlands.
If you would like help identifying a wildlife observation in your community you can contact me on [email protected].
Nuala Madigan from the Bog of Allen Nature Centre, Lullymore, Rathangan