I called in at Wixhall Moss in Shropshire this morning with my mate Marc Hughes.
I had never visited this site before, and I was very impressed by its vastness. Our target species was the White-faced Darter, which had been reported on iRecord. We walked around the Wixhall area of the reserve but had no luck finding them. However, we did see plenty of Green Hairstreak butterflies and Large Red damselflies.
Large Red DamselflyWe then decided to drive to the Welsh side of the reserve at Fenn's Moss. There, we were rewarded with the sight of two White-faced Darters. One flew past us, but we couldn't relocate it. However, we did manage to spot a teneral male that landed on some vegetation in front of us.
Newly Emerged White-faced Darter
Marc mentioned that this was an incredible sighting for Wales because he was not aware of any other locations in the country where this species could be found; it was quite rare. He was thrilled! This was also my first sighting of the dragonfly. Additionally, we spotted a Four-spotted Chaser and reported it to the warden, as it marked the earliest record for this site. Eventually, it was time for us to leave, but we plan to return in the coming weeks.
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