Little Bradley Ponds

Spent Sunday recovering from a boozy BBQ with the family by the usual method of getting out in the fresh air. So chauffeured up to Little Bradley Ponds by an unsympathetic brother.

We arrived at 10.30ish to a seemingly deserted pond but once the sun came out and we got our eye in we started to see quite a few Dragons, in my case twice as many as Graham due to the effects of the previous day!

Started off as usual with hordes of Common Blues, closely followed by a good number of Blue Tails (no Scarce Blue Tails found). Next were the Common Darters which were in large numbers and many ovipositing in the clearer parts of the pond.

We then found Emerald Damsels, male and female, and had a brief fly past by a Downy Emerald which then vanished into the trees.

We tracked down a Vagrant Hawker which Graham noticed (despite his advanced years) in the middle of a tree. Having left the 300mm lens at home - "I won't need it", I had to watch Graham snapping away whilst I looked on with my macro lens feeling rather sorry for myself.

We were rewarded when we stood on the small jetty at the beginning of the pond by a patrolling Migrant Hawker which literally launched itself at a female and they both ended up in the reeds only to emerge a few seconds later and pose in the classic mating wheel for over half an hour which was both long enough and close enough to get some half decent photos.

The final dragon was a rather dopey female Southern Hawker which attempted to lay her eggs on the wooden board walk. I felt like ringing Social Services to report her, but she did eventually realise that she was getting it wrong and moved onto rotting vegetation.

We also had a very colourful flypast from the first Clouded Yellow I have seen for a couple of years. Needless to say it did not linger.

Moved onto Heathfield at around 2pm and picked up masses of Butterflies particularly on the Buddleia around the reserve entrance.


Three males and two female Emperors were very active and there was a huge fight between one of the males and a male Southern Hawker which ended with them both in the water. Otherwise the only thing we saw that was not at LBP was a single rather forlorn female Black Tailed Skimmer who was trying to oviposit whilst being chased by the Emperors. We both tried DIFing and I got two usable shots of a Common Darter but one was of its rear end so not really relevant.