måndag 8 juni 2020

Eurasian Baskettail in Fläckebo

Yesterday when doing garden work, a larger Dragonfly passed by and caught my eye. I noticed the wings where very smokey brown and it puzzled me. Luckily it landed in the rough grass not far away. I  gently approached till I could get a proper view in my bins and what I saw made me stunned. It looked like a Eurasian Baskettail! (Ephiteca bimaculata) - a species I had only seen once ever before and just flying over a river, not landing to perch. So I did not get any pictures that time. Now this guy sat still right in front of me and remained for a couple of hours, probably very newly hatched. I called my friend and dragon-enthusiast Markus Rehnberg and asked if he´d ever seen one of these in the county? He replied "I have now"! He was just standing on another spot (by a different lake some 40 km away) where he could see several specimen, also sitting in the vegetation as if newly hatched. These creatures are know as notorious "flying-dragons", very difficult to see perched. On average 3,5 records have been reported annually the last 6 years in the county. Needless to say, I was very happy to see and photograph this great looking dragonfly. Today I saw several individuals by the lake, and flying over meadows. Clearly this species is overlooked and probably much more common than we know.

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