by Mike Powell and Lee Gregory

First, here is Mike’s account of finding the first individual.

“After watching my son play football in Cwmbran on the morning of Saturday 12 July 2025 I was torn between following up on Lesser Emperor (Anax parthenope) sightings in Cardiff Bay & Wentwood Reservoir. As I had never seen Lesser Emperor in Monmouthshire & was not sure where the exact location in Cardiff Bay was I opted for Wentwood. It’s been a few years since I have been to Wentwood Reservoir & was aware that there had been some repairs undertaken in the recent past so assumed the water levels would be quite high. I was wrong, the level was as low as I can ever remember.

I parked in the lane on the western side, walked past the gate & made my way down the grass bank to where the stream enters. I then slowly walked towards the dam in the very bright 30°C early afternoon temperature, keeping as close to the water’s edge as possible. There were plenty of Broad-bodied Chasers (Libellula depressa), Emperor (Anax imperator) & Black-tailed Skimmers (Orthetrum cancellatum) about. Approximately halfway between the inflow & the dam there was a fairly large bay with lots of short sticks coming out of the water. Almost immediately the Lesser Emperor appeared. It did three circuits of the bay before heading out of view. I scanned the bushes to see if it had landed when a bright red darter caught my eye on one of the farthest sticks. My first thought was Ruddy Darter (Sympetrum sanguineum) but I quickly dismissed this purely on where it was. I then moved to a better viewing location & could see through binoculars the diagnostic two tone eyes & red veins in the wings. Red-veined Darter (Sympetrum fonscolombii), nice. Stupidly I had left my hat & water in the car so took one more look to see if there were any others, saw several Small Red-eyed Damselflies (Erythromma viridulum) & left.

Red-veined Darter is a regular migrant in Glamorgan & probably breeds at Kenfig Pool. I have even seen a pair in tandem less than a mile from Monmouthshire at the former Cardiff Gate pools on 2nd June 2002. As no one had mentioned this species at Wentwood in the previous days I casually posted my sighting on the local Odonata WhatsApp Group the next day. Little did I know that the last record in the county was two decades ago.”

Lee continues the story below.

“Cathy and I were birdwatching at Newport Wetlands Reserve, Uskmouth early morning on 13 July 2025. The weather was forecast to get very hot in the afternoon, that’s why we visited early, the plan was to then head back home to shelter from the heat. Upon checking the South Wales Dragonflies WhatsApp Group I saw a message from Mike Powell with a sighting of a male Red-veined Darter at Wentwood Reservoir the previous afternoon. Being keen on my Monmouthshire dragonfly list, I have been searching likely waterbodies unsuccessfully for Red-veined Darter for several seasons. I have jealously read the finders’ accounts of the previous county sightings at Goldcliff on the British Dragonfly Society website with the last way back in July 2002. I was very keen to follow up Mike’s sighting.

We returned home and had some lunch then I checked weather; the weather forecast did not look good for the next few days for dragonflies being quite cool and cloudy. I decided it had to be now or risk missing the darter so made the decision to brave the heat! I drove to the site and parked on the east side of the reservoir and walked down to the water tower. The first dragonfly I saw was a male Lesser Emperor patrolling along the bank – A great start and my second of the day having found a male earlier cruising the lagoon at Uskmouth from the hide!

Mike’s Red-veined Darter sighting had been on the west shore, 100m north of the dam. I walked along the base of the dam noting large numbers of Common Blue Damselfly (Enallagma cyathigerum) in excess of 400 individuals, also present were 200+ Small Red-eyed Damselflies with many pairs in tandem and ovipositing into floating weed blown against the dam wall. A female Broad-bodied Chaser, eight Emperors including two ovipositing females and several male Black-tailed Skimmers flushed from the dam were also noted.

Upon reaching Mike’s sighting from the day before, I walked to the waters edge and flushed a bright scarlet male darter species from the bank which flew towards the dam, sadly the views were too brief but I suspected it to be a Red-veined Darter! Scanning towards the dam I could see lots of twigs sticking out of the water and on top of one was presumably the darter I had flushed at it was vivid red. Carefully negotiating round a small willow-covered mound to get closer and trying not to get too muddy, I scanned the twigs again. The darter was at much closer range now but still too distant with binoculars so switched to my camera and took several record shots which revealed red veins in the wing, a pale pterostigma and crucially the lower third of the eyes were pale blue – YES! RED-VEINED DARTER! I negotiated further along the bank through the very dense willows along the bank to get better photos. I managed to get some nice photos and was extremely pleased with the results! I returned to the original spot where I saw the darter first and surprisingly spotted a male Red-veined Darter on the sticks here too, I scanned back towards the dam and the one I had photographed was still there! BONUS! A self-found Monmouthshire Red-veined Darter! Buoyed by this success I decided to check further north along the west shore and was amazed to find another four male Red-veined Darters sat on twigs scattered along the shoreline making a total of six male Red-veined Darters! I managed to get photos of five darters all of which had slightly tatty wings and one had some black markings down the abdomen.

It was now getting late in the afternoon and the sun was dropping, putting the west shore of the reservoir into shadow. By now I was quite sweaty and dehydrated but very happy, so headed back to the car with a big smile on my face!”

One individual (and a possible second) was still present here on 16 July, seen by Steve Preddy, and one was still present on 19 July, seen by Andy Karran.

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