Paul's Blog - All comments and views are my own,

Caves in a forest....? Today Veronica, one of the stalwart Wednesday volunteers, and myself spent the day with Dr Simeon Jones the Conservation officer for Carmarthenshire, making up for not being out yesterday! We started off at a confidential site checking, from a safe distance, that our known roosts of Greater Horseshoe Bats were safe and secure, all seemed well. The sites also host one of our nicest?  spiders' the Cave Orb Spider, Meta menardi a really impressive beast. Cave Orb Spider, (photo Veronica Haines) Not everyone will  see this large spider, especially since it lurks about in dark sometimes damp places such as, caves!, disused tunnels, old wartime bunkers etc, but its a great sight.

There be more Dragons..... This morning has seen a "mass" emergence of Common Darter dragonflies from the garden pond, with eight new individuals either emerging or drying off. Considering the pond is only 12 months old this week I'm really pleased that so many of the eggs I saw being laid in the late summer of 2015 have developed and emerged, over 30 individuals have made it to the final stage so far. The Common Darter, Sympetrum striolatum, is one of our commonest members of the Odonata Order of insects belonging to the Suborder Anisoptera, (damselflies the smaller weaker looking bedfellows belong to the Suborder Zygoptera).  They can develop from egg to full grown dragonfly in as little as three months, given optimum conditions in the pond, although eight to twelve months is more likely. Not all will make it to maturity with plenty of obstacles in the way of success, not least of which is the prevailing weather, high winds may result in newly emerged