Elland gravel pits

It was a mild morning so I decided to take a bus trip to Elland Gravel Pits to see if there were any spring dragonflies about. To my surprise, the first thing that I saw upon entering was a rather stunning banded demoiselle, Which I was unaware lived this far north. unfortunatly I was unable to get a photo before it fluttered away up river. I decided to walk along the canal side, where I spotted a female blackcapp in a hawthorn bush. -Blackcap About 200m along the canal I found a path that lead away from the canal and into the woods, presumably to the river, so I followed it. When I arrived at the river I spotted lots of ringlets and a rather tatty speckled wood. There were rather a lot of ringlets, But they refused to stay still, until I found one on a bramble with its wings open. It was rather unfortunate that it was facing me rather than facing away so the photo doesnt look as good as it could do. -Ringlet Whilst I was walking along the edge of the river I got a shock at finding a brown hawker, which I had assumed was a late summer dragonfly, not an early summer. I assumed that it must be an early waker, but to my surprise I found several others along the riverside. I decided to go to the small pools near the feilds. Along the way I spotted more ringlets, plus small and large skippers and also an excess of burnet moths. When i reached the first pool I was dissapointed to find that it was almost barren, however a walk around it found me, what I thought at the time, a grizzled skipper, my first tick in calderdale this year, but it turns out the it was actually a latticed heath moth.

-Latticed Heath Moth The feild was full of butterflys and moths too. The moths being mainly 6-spot burnet and the butterflies including skippers and meadow browns plus ringlets.

-Small skipper Withing the long grass there were quite a few moths, but I had no idea what they were, so when I got home i looked them up and one of them is something a bit unusual apparently-a blackneck

-A Blackneck

Walking along the pools produced a variety of damselflies, including common blue, blue tailed and large red, but no dragonflies until I met up with the river again. Where I was surprised to find another brown hawker, so one was definatly not a fluke.

Walking back I spotted a gatekeeper butterfly in the shrubbery so I Followed it to try and get a photo.

-Gatekeeper I decided to walk back along the canal way so That I could see the pools that might have birds on them. on one of them I spotted a heron but when I got the binoculars out I found another three, so it must have been a family

-Grey Heron I also found some pretty spectacular butterfly catterpillars, proibably small tortoishell feeding on the nettles, but in some cases completly overunning the nettles.

-Caterpillar

When I arrived back at where I started I decided to go for a small walk upstrem to see what I could find. Almost immediatly I spotted a dragonlfy which was clearly not a brown hawker, as it diddnt have tinted wings. I Just couldnt manage to get a quick photo to allow for an I.d. I found a few veiwing platforms or something along the edge of the water, but they were old and rusty, so obviously not used very often.

However when i followed one I spotted another banded demosielle resting on a leaf.

-Banded demoiselle I tried to follow the dragonfly for a photo but kept loosing it. In one instance I stopped watching the dragonfly to find the demoiselle looking right at me. It had caught a midge or something and was just sat there staring right at me!

-Banded demoiselle I then spotted a second dragonfly hunting the river, this one was a brown hawker, but it was clear that the none brown hawker was quite upset about this as it kept attacking the brown hawker.

-Brown Hawker I spotted that the none brown hawker had moved upstream slightly where it was flying slower, so I headed up that way and was rewarded with an I.D photo proving that it was an emeror dragonfly.

-Emperor Dragonfly I watched it for a while before it began to head down to where I had been and then dissapeared. I waited a while before deciding to go and have a look where I had been. There I was rewarded with a stunning view of the emperor, but more importantly it was landed allowing me to get some shots, which were much needed.

-Emperor Dragonfly

So as you can see, it was a very worth-while trip, but I had to be heading home, so it ends here!!