Flanders Moss NNR
We are very lucky to have David McCulloch, one of our volunteers, monitoring dragonflies at Flanders Moss NNR. Working with the British Dragonfly Society (see here) David set up a transect around the boardwalk at Flanders Moss. The aim of this transect is to get an annual picture of how the dragonflies and damselflies are doing on the moss. This is important as the populations could change with climate change (new species recorded or others lost) but also with the bog restoration work that we are carrying out (numbers individuals increasing or decreasing). So by monitoring the dragonflies we can get an idea of how the bog itself is doing.
To find out more about David’s monitoring work you can watch this short video of his presentation at the British Dragonfly Society Scottish conference this year.
2 bogs, a swamp and some islands 
Only a few dragons counted on my survey on Wednesday despite perfect dragon weather. I think July falls between two peaks – the late spring peak (early June) of large red damsels and four-spotted chasers, and the summer peak (August) of black darters and emerald damsels. My gut feeling is June is definitely the best month to see large numbers at Flanders, but I’ll need to keep doing surveys to be certain.
LikeLiked by 1 person
This has been interesting both to read and to listen to 🙂
LikeLiked by 1 person