I skirt the edge of lower Doolittle Moss, in Delamere Forest, treading through soft peaty soil and batting away the pungent bracken that has grown almost as tall as me. Hard green fruit are starting to appear on the brambles, and bumblebees are making the most of the last blossoms.
Surrounded by forest on all sides, the moss is black acidic water devoid of fish. Not the least bit inviting, even as the temperature climbs. But it is a boggy beauty spot in its own right. Half submerged islands of vivid lime-green sphagnum moss break the surface. Stands of cotton grass and sedge shoot upwards, and above them the sunlight catches on flakes of silver and gold.
After several days of rain, dragonflies and damselflies are on the wing in earnest. These insects are solar-powered: at their best on the brightest days, hidden among trees when it’s dull.
Red and blue damsels drift around me like filaments on the breeze but I am here to see a particular species: the white-faced darter. This dragonfly has recently been reintroduced to the county by Cheshire Wildlife Trust. On the south-facing bank, I bump into the project leader, Chris Meredith, who points out where the precious larvae were installed earlier in the year. According to their surveys 50 have emerged from their exuviae this year, so I’m hoping to glimpse a fully grown adult.
I strain my eyes, concentrating low on the open water channels between vegetation. I look for the white frons, black abdomen and “characteristic bouncing flight” of Leucorrhinia dubia that’s mentioned in my field guide. I’m searching for a needle in a wetland haystack.
Through binoculars I can identify the red-gold wings of a brown hawker patrolling, newly emerged black darters still highly glossed, an emerald damselfly at rest, four-spotted chasers on the defensive … but no white faces among them.
I stay long enough to be bitten through my trousers by mosquitoes but I am not rewarded. Only the most mature dragonfly larvae are translocated from donor sites in Shropshire and Cumbria in the spring, which consequently brings the flight season forward. I will have to return earlier next year – fingers crossed the sun co-operates.
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