Phil James visited Gwent Wildlife Trust’s Magor Marsh nature reserve on 20 May 2025, watching and photographing dragonflies. In the southwest part of the reserve, where there is a wild flower meadow, Phil found and photographed a male Scarce Chaser skirting back and forth where the reens meet, and settling occasionally. The photos, which were uploaded to the iNaturalist website, enabled confirmation of the identification. This is the first record of a species long predicted to occur in the county; it has been found on the River Avon around Bristol and Bath since the 1980s, and in recent years has become established on the Somerset Levels and other areas on the English side of the Severn estuary. Two have reached Glamorgan (near Barry in 2017 and on the northern edge of Cardiff in 2020), and there was also one in 2020 at Llangorse Lake near Brecon. Now it’s finally made it onto the Monmouthshire list too; hopefully this will be the precursor to the species becoming established here.

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