After the incredibly dry summer of 2022, last year was the complete opposite, with annual rainfalls well above the normal average. As dragonflies spend most of their life underwater and need their pond or stream to maintain water levels all year round, it was perfect for their life cycle. The rain did, however, make it very difficult to survey dragonflies as they tend to hide in vegetation when it is raining. As a result, sightings were down 47% year on year; however, there were a number of highlights.

The British Dragonfly Society classify a “priority site” in the North East as one with

•           Nationally scarce species breeding

•           Locally scarce species breeding

•           14 or more species

Rainton Meadows met two of those criteria, with confirmed sightings of 18 species and a pair of willow emerald damselflies at Joe's Pond, making our wonderful SSSI, the most northerly site where they appear to be breeding. Low Barns Nature Reserve also had 14 species recorded, and a former Durham Wildlife Trust site, Brasside Pond, once again was the best place to see small red-eyed damselflies, which are very rare this far north.

Rainton Meadows also hosted guided walks, where Trustee and County Recorder, Michael Coates, pointed out dragonflies as the groups walked around the reserve.  Apart from seeing eight species, one particular highlight was seeing a common darter dragonfly emerge in one of the shallow ponds next to the main path. While typically, that would simply be interesting, in this instance, it was fascinating, as that pond had been completely dry between July and November of the year before. This means that either the eggs that were laid earlier in 2022, went into diapause (where they do not move onto the larvae stage until conditions are better) or, more probably, some larvae (also called nymphs) survived for months deep in the cracks of the dried-out pond. Either way, it has us scratching our heads.

Overall, in the Durham Wildlife Trust region, 2089 records were submitted, and they included 20 species. The most frequently observed species were common darter, common blue damselfly, large red, blue-tailed and azure damselflies. Apart from the two willow emerald damselflies, the scarcest species in our area were small red-eyed damselfly, golden-ringed dragonfly, black darters and ruddy darters, although Michael was 'fortunate' to have two ruddy darters mate in the palm of his hand.

While four other non-Durham Wildlife Trust sites also met the criteria for a priority site, it is quite possible that several Durham Wildlife Trust reserves missed out due to a lack of surveys. Only seven of our reserves were surveyed (down from 13 in 2021), so we are looking for volunteers who feel confident identifying dragonflies to liaise with Michael so that visits can be made to our reserves each month between April and October. Please use our contact form to link with Michael.

It is not long until the first large red damselflies will emerge (normally late April), so if you want to learn more about identifying our 20 resident species and know where to go, download the 2023 Annual report below.