Canvey Island Jewels

June/July crossover, wind and clouds. What a rubbish combination. Nevertheless Mike and I decided to have a go at that ditch at Canvey.

There was limited variety - no sign of any Southern Migrant Hawkers, but we had 100+ Ruddy Darters, and a few Emeralds to brighten up the day.

I took my trusty macro lens to help with the id, although Mike was on the case so we had no issues there. Just one small problem - my iMac has become almost completely useless since I casually and naively clicked on Yes to install the Catalina operating system. However I managed today by judicious Googling to find out how to load photos, so here goes.

First up is local speciality the Southern Emerald. Just look at those bicoloured pterostigma! And on further inspection, yellowish behind the eyes, smooth flank with no mark. Very pleased to have come across this one again.

There were plenty of Scarce Emeralds too - some really nice males. This one had me confused as it have white edges to the pterostimga but I think this is Scarce not Southern as the other features seem to be Scarce - no yellow behind eyes, slight tick mark on the side of the body.

We thought we'd finish off with a visit to Blue House Farm at North Fambridge, but the car park was closed and the alternative parking arrangements were lacking, so that was it. Short, but productive.