The Lincolnshire Bird Club

After being dissuaded by John Walker from going to Frieston/Frampton to look for Terns in favour of a visit to Jim Dodsworth's HLS scheme on Croft Marsh we duly arrived and walked the visitor's path around the 'reserve'. It was a blustery cool morning but intermittently sunny and with the dark stone path holding some heat we soon had a Black-tailed Skimmer on the path followed by a pristine male Red-veined Darter also making use of the radiation. Further along we had another male and also brief views of a female. These were all seen before the first hide was reached. We continued all the way to the east hide where a second female was present on the path leading up to the hide. Very good views were had as the individuals were resting for long periods of time on the track.
We believe that this is a new location for this species.

Any photos Ed?.

Steve.

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I did take one of the females with my mobile phone just for ID but not publishable - I did show it to Chris and Sue Bottomer who were able to positively ID it. No problems with the males of course. Neither John nor I tend to carry cameras but Monica has one and when/if we get a bit of sun we're going to go and take some pics as they were settling very close for some minutes. Bet they're not there next visit!!

Monica and I took advantage of the perfect weather conditions this morning to look for more red-veined Darters. As it was so warm there were none on the perimeter track but most of the pools had males 'on patrol'. We only checked a few out and most views were distant, through bins, but we counted at least 12 males - no females were seen. There is no public access to the Wetlands Project other than the signed periphery track. Please feel free to PM me if interested in a visit.