Hull Dragons: recording the damselflies and dragonflies of the city of Hull

Following on my project last year Yorkshire Dragonfly Quest 2018, with the aim of observing all the breeding species of Yorkshire dragonflies, this year I'm spearheading a collaborative, citizen science project to document the presence, distribution and evidence of breeding for dragonflies in the city of Hull and surrounding areas, which I set up with the help of Dick Shillaker, of Hull Natural History Society and Yorkshire Branch of the British Dragonfly Society.

If you live in Hull or surrounding area (i.e. from the Humber Bridge in the west to Paull Haven in the East and from the Humber boundary to the villages of Skidby, Cottingham, Wawne and Bilton) and either know or would like to find our more about dragonflies and collaborate in this challenge, you are most welcome to join the challenge.

Temporary pond at Snuff Mill Lane

Dragonflies and damselflies in Hull

I've always been impressed by the variety of wetlands and ponds (including temporary and permanent, large and small), ditches and drains found at Hull. This is mirrored on a good diversity of dragonflies and damselflies, with two sites (Oak Road Lake and Noddle Hill Local Nature Reserve) highlighted as priority sites for dragonflies in Yorkshire (over 8 breeding species, see here). Records of 17 species are available, including the recently established and still expanding Small Red-eyed Damselfly (found at East Park in 2018), Hairy Dragonfly (found at Oak Road Lake in 2018) and Vagrant Emperor at a Hessle garden in 2015 and an old record (1836), of a Vagrant Darter in the city.

Hairy Dragonfly feeding on Harlequin Ladybird, Oak Road, 2018.

Why record?
Not all these records are of breeding populations, and dragonfly species are in a state of flux due to their sensitivity to increasing temperatures, so the data collected is important to document abundance and distribution trends, also with a view of contributing to the State of Dragonflies Report of 2020.

Broad-bodied chaser at Snuff Mill Lane, 2018.

What the challenge involves

To contribute, you need to chose one or more sites which you are able to visit, in the spirit of 'adopt a site' of the British Dragonfly Society. For each chosen site (see below) you need to commit to at least two visits during the peak dragonfly season (May to September). An early visit in May-June and a late visit in July-August would be ideal minimally. During each visit, you need to make a complete list of all species observed, numbers (estimates are fine) and evidence of breeding (check out the guidelines from the British Dragonfly society). Once you have your data you will need to input it in iRecord using the available BDS dragonfly form. The data will follow the usual verification process so if you took photographs please upload them with your records.

If you would like to contribute please let me know via e-mail (a.gomez@hull.ac.uk). In particular, let me know if you have a preference for one or more particular sites so that we can make sure we cover as many sites as possible.

As part of this project, and here at BugBlog, I will cover in several blog posts what species to look for when and where and interesting aspects of the natural history and behaviour of the dragonflies and damselflies of the city of Hull.

Oonopidae: Pink Prowlers

A medium sized family which includes spiders with six, four or two eyes, and even eyeless cave dwelling species. There are two British species of the genus Oonops, but also at least three other species introduced and now living in hot-houses. They are tiny pinkish spiders, up to 2 mm long. They have six eyes in a cluster, and are nocturnal wandering spiders that spend the day in a simple silk cell. They have a simple female genital opening and male palp. These spiders have a most peculiar way of moving, with a slow walk with front legs stretched out like feeling the ground, followed by a run at speed.

Under recorded
 Oonops domesticus, also called the Pink Prowler, is only found inside houses, but it does easily go unnoticed due to its nocturnal habits. Michael Roberts recommends getting up at 3 or 4 in the morning and checking the walls for the presence of this spider, adding 'By a strange coincidence my first sighting of O. domesticus in our present home was when illustrating the species, at 4 a.m., and it ran across the illustration!'. A more civilised alternative is to search for the outdoors species, O. pulcher under rocks and bark or in bird nests or dry leaf litter. O. pulcher is often associated to the webs of larger spiders, like Amaurobius and Tegenaria. There it acts as a scavenger, feeding on the discarder remains of their prey. A further indication of how under recorded these tiny spiders are, is this confession by William Bristowe:

 'three species which I had added to the British list - Oonops domesticus, Euophrys lanigera and Physocyclus simoni were subsequently found in the British Museum (Natural History)! May I be forgiven for disclosing this secret.'

Small brood
They hold the record of fewest eggs per brood, just two, which are laid in the mothers cell in a transparent egg sac.

UPDATE 20/09/16. Post now includes a photo of a Oonops (likely domesticus) that walked on my office wall while I was working, my first sighting of these spiders.

Small Tortoiseshell butterflies

A couple of weeks ago I did the usual annual compilation for 2009. I have compiled my butterflies records and submitted them to the local Butterfly Conservation recorder since 2003. It has been a super butterfly year. I recorded a total of 17 sp. within the boundaries of the City of Hull. One of the most noticeable species  this year has been the Small Tortoiseshell. This Small Tortoiseshell was the first butterfly I saw this year, after the long, cold winter, sunbathing on the pavement on a busy street.

There has been a lot of talk about the population decrease in this species, possibly due to mortality due a newly arrived parasitoid tachinic fly, Sturmia bella. This fly has been found to parasitise up to 40% of south England Small Tortoiseshell caterpillar clusters. There seem to be additional reasons, as this butterfly shows marked cyclic population fluctuations even before the fly was recorded in the UK.

 The graph above shows the collated results extracted from the UK Butterfly Monitoring Scheme 2007 report (well worth browsing if you like butterflies).
Despite all this, 2009 has been the best Small Tortoiseshell year since I record butterflies.
This is my total year count graph, showing the 'rebound' of the Small Tortortoiseshell after the 2006 'low'.

This is the phenology of this species in Hull.

It seems likely that there are two broods a year.
I discovered a great butterfly site, packed with info and with superb photos: learnaboutbutterflies.com

Recording a nature diary electronically

I moved to writing my nature diary on the computer a year ago. I started using Evernote, for a series of reasons (a recent entry above). It is free, accessible from many platforms and it also has the ability to synchronise notes and you always have an updated back-up copy on the web. Importantly, it is fully searchable and you can put photos or websites in it, in this respect it is quite flexible. The main problem with it, for the use I give it, is that I cannot export the notes in other format than text, and even then, the note creation date does not appear in the text file. I have partially avoided this by writing the date on each note, but is a bit of an extra effort. I also would like it to have a system in which I can do a search for a species and then be able to export the search as a tab-delimited text which I can import into Excel, say, in order to submit my records to various recording societies. Also, I wish I could draw on the notes! I love the feeling when going through my old notebooks looking for something (when did I see the first butterfly this year?) that is missing in the electronic form, devoid of little drawings and sketches - a bird carrying a stick, a sunbathing butterfly, a bee - which give it personality and conveys a sense of the moment. I'd love to hear if anybody records electronically and what software they use.

A sketch on a sunbathing Red Admiral on a fig leaf (14th September 2006).

A digital natural history notebook?

I have taken notes about natural history on and off since I was around 12. I got my first binoculars as a present, and a new world opened before me. In more than the usual sense of being able to see things far away, as I was also shortsighted. I got my first pair of glasses shortly afterwards and the whole world become focused. Taking notes and making sketches of animals I saw, mostly birds from the local park but also reptiles or amphibians slowly become my natural history diary. I used to make the books myself, and they were monthly in my teens. I then upgraded to good quality yearly notebooks. I made line drawings and, during the summers, I had enough time on my hands to draw in them careful watercolor sketches. When faced with the need organise records to be able to go back to them I made a card file cabinet. In 2001 I got my first digital camera. With it came a new way of recording natural history sightings: even a poor quality photo is often better than your memory when trying to identify beasts. Digital photos have a date and a time, which allows for searches and immediate organisation. I then had a written notebook and photos, but little link between then. I like making my records public if they can be of any help, so, when I had to do this, it meant going through the notebooks and transferring the records onto the computer. I hope that writing a blog will be my latest upgrade in natural history recording: fully searchable and with less chances to getting lost than a precious notebook, a unique copy with all the year events. However, I am not completely sure I will stop scribbling things onto paper...as yet.