The Wildlife Trust for Lancashire, Manchester and North Merseyside
If you regularly wander the North West’s wetter areas – and there are plenty of them – you will have noticed its most spectacularly colourful beasties.
Dragonflies and damselflies add splashes of colour to any pond, lake, river and canal and when the sun shines they are abundant in our region.
Twenty-four species have been recorded in Lancashire and North Merseyside – eight damselflies and 16 dragonflies – just less than half of all the species in the United Kingdom.
To help us identify and understand these beautiful insects, two of the county’s foremost naturalists Steve White and Philip H Smith have published The Dragonflies of Lancashire and North Merseyside, supported by the Lancashire and Cheshire Fauna Society (£10).
The book is a superb companion for novices and more experienced spotters who want to know about the insects captured in their binoculars and cameras. The pair have gathered thousands of records of 389 observers mainly covering Lancashire and North Merseyside. However 4,000 records from Greater Manchester are included in some of the maps.
Species in the region include the vividly named emerald damselfly, red-eyed damselfly, emperor dragonfly, golden-ringed dragonfly, four-spotted chaser and red-veined darter. A total of 19 species are known to breed in the region with high hopes for the yellow-winger darter and the lesser emperor.
Superbly illustrated with pictures of the relevant insects and areas, and with useful maps of where they have been recorded, Steve and Phil also go into the history of recording and factors affecting the distribution.
Both have worked with Lancashire Wildlife Trust to restore areas, like Lunt Meadows in Merseyside Middleton, Heysham, Mere Sands Wood and Brockholes in Lancashire, creating perfect habitat for a wide range of creatures including dragonflies. At Brockholes we are told: “The three blue damselfly species are frequent over most of the site at peak season, as are brown hawkers, emperors and migrant hawkers later on. Bare areas, such as gravel tracks and dried mud are especially favoured by black tailed skimmer and also by common darters.”
Watching groups of common blue damselflies in aerial displays over water or spotting dragonflies heading purposefully between plants, reminiscent of World War One planes, anyone will find a great deal of interest in The Dragonflies of Lancashire and North Merseyside.
In my case, I can’t wait for summer when I can use my copy to increase my knowledge about these fascinating insects.
You can buy the book or get more details from the Lancashire and Cheshire Fauna Society click here.
Areas covered in the book
• Most maps include the whole region
• Fylde
• Mere Sands Wood
• Marton Mere
• Brockholes
• Sefton Coast
• Bold Moss
• Lunt Meadows
• Lancaster and Silverdale
• Middleton and Heysham nature reserves
• Bowland
• West Pennine Moors
• Wigan
• Bolton
