Dragonflies, info request

Published in Forum items

Can anyone help with information about dragonflies on Hvar?

Dragonfly Dragonfly Steve Jones

Steve from Dol has sent us the following query by email on 23rd September 2016:

'Do you know much about dragonflies on the Island?

Over the Summer I have seen several and I know Norman nearby has also seen similar.

While I know a few of the more obvious ones I am puzzled, one thing I do know is that they like water in which to lay. The dragonfly life cycle is for the most part spent underwater and they only emerge as what we see towards the end of their life and to mate.

I am puzzled as to where they can possibly lay eggs, I only know one source of water down near the airfield and I don’t believe from there they would travel up to Dol. I often think they could be laying in the numerous wells/water storage places in the field but most are covered and I don’t know how they would emerge. One species described to me was the Golden Ringed Dragonfly and this as I read likes fast flowing water so I even more at a loss.

I was down near the airfield yesterday and several of just two species that I could tell were flying the one species tended to be flying joined to his mate, there were several of these

Didn’t know whether or not you can shed any light on this for me? I know of someone in the UK who specialises in Dragonflies, I may email him and see what comes of it.'

Eco Hvar's reply, 23rd September 2016:

Yes, actually there are many more sources of water than you'd think, off the beaten tracks, but also in the fields.

One of Hvar's 'secret' pools. Photo Vivian Grisogono

A lot of the enclosed wells have open basin on top,which can be home to all sorts of insects, including water snakes. Unless the fields around the wells have been doused in herbicide of course. There was a superb little water snake in the open part of the well by my field one year. It would curl itself round and round very lazily, right up to the time the basin went dry. I was afraid 'my' snake had died, lying there quietly, but it then discreetly disappeared, re-appearing a cuple of times in the grass above the well, presumably looking forward to the winter rains which would replenish its basking place. 

Talking about herbicide, did you see that the sale of Cidokor/Roundup is to be banned from October 1st, together with 12 other glyphosate-based herbicides? Good as far as it goes, but it still leaves 12 other glyphosate herbicides on the market!

We''ll look forward to hearing the results of your dragonfly investigations. A good place to see them is in the environs of Humac, where there are some lovely natural pools where the horses and some hunting dogs drink and butterflies abound, as there are no poisoned fields in the vicinity.

You are here: Home forum items Dragonflies, info request

Eco Environment News feeds

  • Exclusive: Local authorities have spent less than £40m out of £170m collected since offsetting scheme began in 2016

    London councils are sitting on more than £130m that should be funding local climate action, the Guardian can reveal.

    More than £170m has been collected through the mayor of London’s carbon offset fund, which developers are required to pay into to mitigate emissions from new projects, since it was introduced in 2016. However, the capital’s 33 local authorities have spent less than £40m between them. Some have said they do not have the resources, expertise or time to decide how to spend it.

    Continue reading...

  • Environment groups say Thursday order ignores effort to adopt rules to prevent harmful mining of ocean floor

    Environmental groups are decrying an executive order signed by Donald Trump to expedite deep-sea mining for minerals, saying it could irreparably harm marine ecosystems and ignores an ongoing process to adopt international rules for the practice.

    Trump’s Thursday order directed the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration to fast-track permits for companies to mine the ocean floor in both US and international waters.

    Continue reading...

  • Developed countries pressed to submit national plans well before Cop30 as time runs out to avoid 1.5C temperature rise

    Rich countries are dragging their feet on producing new plans to combat the climate crisis, thereby putting the poor into greater danger, some of the world’s most vulnerable nations have warned.

    All governments are supposed to publish new plans this year on cutting greenhouse gas emissions, but so far only a small majority have done so, and some of the plans submitted have been inadequate to the scale of action needed.

    Continue reading...

  • Inadequate record keeping means councils do not know whether former waste sites contain toxic substances

    More than 100 old landfills in England that may be contaminated with toxic substances have flooded since 2000, potentially posing a serious safety risk, it can be revealed.

    Some of these former dumps containing possibly hazardous materials sit directly next to public parks and housing estates with hundreds of households, the analysis by the Greenpeace-funded journalism website Unearthed , in partnership with the Guardian, found.

    Continue reading...

  • Energy secretary says countries must work together during conference at which US delegate called net zero ‘dangerous’

    Britain will find “common ground” with the US on energy and the economy including on nuclear power, despite differences over climate policy, the UK energy secretary, Ed Miliband, has pledged.

    He was speaking at the close of a two-day, 60-country conference in London on energy security, hosted by the government and the International Energy Agency (IEA), at which the US delegate Tommy Joyce attacked net zero policies as “dangerous” and “damaging”, and said it was in the interests of “our adversaries”.

    Continue reading...

  • Trees are being cleared for rainforest mega-event – but state governor says a ‘new history’ is under way

    Fake metal trees have been set into the concrete ground of the Amazonian host city of this year’s climate summit, prompting scandalised contrasts with the once-living vegetation that has been cleared in preparation for Cop30 in Brazil.

    But in an unlikely convergence of views, both the centre-right state governor and leftwing social movements insist this is a storm in a plant pot compared with the darkening geopolitical threats to the world’s biggest diplomatic gathering, which will take place in November in Belém.

    Continue reading...

  • Council housing microgrid and tube-powered heat network among schemes supported by Mayor of London fund

    Carbon offset funding received from developers should be spent mostly on energy efficiency, renewable energy and district heating projects, according to guidance from the mayor of London. But some councils say the amount of funding they receive is often not enough to cover the cost of these kinds of projects.

    However, others have found solutions to this by combining their offset cash with other sources of funding to pay for major projects. Perhaps the most innovative example of this is Islington council’s award-winning Bunhill heat and power network in north London, which has received more than £5m in offset funding.

    Continue reading...

  • As pollution levels hit record highs and fresh water becomes ‘the new oil’, is it time to radically reimagine our relationship to the natural world?

    If you find it difficult to think of a river as alive, try picturing a dying or dead river. This is easier. We know what this looks like. We know how it feels. A dying river is one who does not reach the sea. A dying river’s fish float belly-up in stagnant pools. Swans on the upper Thames near Windsor now wear brown tidemarks on their snowy chest feathers, showing where they have sailed through sewage. I recently saw a Southern Water riverbank sign badged with a bright blue logo that read “Water for Life”. The sign instructed passersby to “avoid contact with the water. If you’ve had contact with the water, please wash your hands before eating.” In parts of this septic isle, fresh water has become first undrinkable, then unswimmable, then untouchable.

    How did it come to this – and where do we go from here? The crisis is one of imagination as well as of legislation. We have forgotten that our fate flows with that of rivers, and always has. Our relationship with fresh water has become intensely instrumentalised, privatised and monetised: river understood as resource, not life force. The duty of care for rivers, who extend such care to us, has been abrogated. Regulation has gone unenforced, monitoring is strategically underfunded. Rivers named after deities – the Shannon (Sinnan), the Dee (Deva) – now struggle under burdens of nitrates, forever chemicals and waste.

    Continue reading...

  • The Anohni and the Johnsons singer is collaborating with marine scientists for two special shows at Sydney’s Vivid festival that will show the reef’s plight

    Anohni Hegarty is about to go to the Great Barrier Reef for the first time. “I feel like I’m going to Auschwitz,” she says nervously. “On the one hand, I’m so excited to go because the landscape is so beautiful, and I know there’s going to be so much that’s gorgeous. And yet, I’m also scared.”

    In a week, the British-born, New York-based avant garde singer of Anohni and the Johnsons is flying to Lizard Island, a paradise of powdery sands on the reef, 1,600km north-west of Brisbane. Its luxury villas and bluest of blue waters are a stark contrast to the grim nature of Anohni’s assignment: documenting the current state of the world’s biggest coral reef.

    Continue reading...

  • Some households aren’t suited to solar – but do batteries make environmental or financial sense on their own?

    Many people want to reduce their carbon footprint but for various reasons can’t install solar panels. Some roofs face the wrong way, others are overshadowed or subject to heritage restrictions, and apartment blocks often lack space.

    Landlords are also often reluctant to install solar systems in rental properties since the benefits flow to the tenants rather than the property owner.

    Continue reading...

Eco Health News feeds

Eco Nature News feeds