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DragonFlyIreland 2000 - 2003
This four year project will undertake to document the status and distribution of dragonflies throughout Ireland.
This project will:
raise the profile of the group
encourage a wider interest in wetland conservation
map the distribution of Irish species
highlight key sites, habitat and species
result in a high-quality publication aimed at both naturalists and the general public
If you would like to participate in DragonFlyIreland contact the scheme organiser:
Robert Thompson, 8 Weaver's Court, Banbridge, Co. Down BT32 4RP
Email: rst1@bann8.fsnet.co.uk
See the web site at
http://www.habitas.org.uk
The Natural History of Ireland's Dragonflies by Brian Nelson and Robert Thompson
is now available from the Ulster Museum, Belfast.
Cost UK£20 plus £10 postage and packing (June 2004).
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Discovery of three new species early in the project owed a lot to the alertness of birdwatchers
in the sunny south-eastern countries, looking for new targets for their telescopes in the
ornithological doldrums of high summer. Searching the coastal marshes of Co. Wexford and elsewhere, their glance
was arrested by the glittering wings of the emperor butterfly, Anax
imperator, and its lesser relative Anex parthenope.
Both these migrant dragonflies seem to have been encouraged by global warming to colonise our
south-eastern corner, and the third new Irish species, the migrant hawker Aeshna mixta, has also been spreading
north.
Michael Viney in "Another Life" The Irish Times 5 April 2003
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