The First Dragonfly Hotspot in Wales
On Saturday 16th July Llangorse Lake will be recognised as the first Dragonfly Hotspot in Wales.
Near the Crannog at Lakeside, Eleanor Colver, Conservation Officer of the British Dragonfly Society (BDS), will present a plaque and unveil a colourful information board about the life of dragonflies.
Hotspots are chosen by BDS as places which offer visitors the opportunity to see and learn about dragonflies. Since 2014 the Society has designated seventeen sites. The nearest to Brecknock is at the Shropshire Hills Discovery Centre, Craven Arms. The Llangorse Dragonfly Group (LDG), which includes staff and volunteers of the Wildlife Trust of South and West Wales, the Biodiversity Information Service, the Brecon Beacons National Park and the local community, are holding a launch event. This will include pond dipping, dragonfly walks and dragonfly related crafts suitable for the whole family. Future public events are planned.
Llangorse Lake is a great place to see a wide variety of dragons and damsels, sometimes in large numbers.The Nature Trail runs between the car park, cafe, toilets and boats at Llangorse Lakeside and the small car park below Llangasty Church, a little under two miles.
Starting from Lakeside, the slipway and the bridge across the Llynfi outlet stream are good places to watch patrolling Migrant and Brown Hawkers in August and September. Banded Demoiselles, which choose running water, are sometimes on the Llynfi in mid-summer.
In the second field, the lake sometimes spreads out in a shallow flood. When this happens in summer, dragonflies may include Emperor and Broad-bodied and Four-spotted Chasers. In two years there have been Scarce Blue-tailed Damselflies, a species more often seen at hill pools.
Near Ty Mawr there are two lovely hay meadows, with orchids, Ragged Robin and Bird’s Foot Trefoil, Common Blue butterflies and Burnet moths. By the bird hide is a particularly good place to see damselflies from mid-May. On sunny days thousands may emerge; at first they are mainly Variable Damselflies, and then Common Blue which have a longer flight season. Among them are smaller numbers of Blue-tailed, Azure, Large Red and Red-eyed Damselflies. A few Hairy Dragonflies appear in early summer before the other large species - Migrant and Southern Hawkers, Emperor and Golden-ringed Dragonflies. Migrants are the most numerous and it is possible to see fifty or more from the Trail, with the total around the whole Lake probably in the hundreds.
What you see at Llangorse Lake varies through the season from May to October, and dragonflies are much more active and visible on still sunny days. The current species total is twenty-two, with several additions in recent years, some apparently as a result of spread to west and north with climate change. And the Lake is rich in all sorts of other wildlife. I hope you enjoy a Hotspot visit soon.
Article supplied by Keith Noble, Breconshire Dragonfly Recorder