Our first major hunting stop during our 2012 6-week French excursion was le Loir, being a masculine tributary of the better known female, La Loire. More precisely, we stayed at a very pleasant camping municipal, camping-de-la-Chabotiere, at Luché-Pringé.
This was our third visit to Luché-Pringé, though only our second since developing my Odonata obsession. The campsite is delightfully situated on the outskirts of the rural village/small town with easy access on foot to boulangers, a boucherie, a small supermarché and a money machine. In addition, the campsite is right on the banks of le Loir supporting good numbers of Odos plus a variety of other n-legged critters. Given all these undoubted benefits, it is hardly surprising that this stop is becoming one of our favourites. Besides, it makes a good recuperation stop following a couple of days of travel getting to France.
Whilst here, as well as the wild flower fans finding a pair of fields sporting the densest population of poppies they’ve ever seen in their lives, we also expanded our Odo hunting activities to another series of lakes, Lacs de la Monnerie, near La Flèche. Neither location yielded any surprises or new species but teh counts were reasonable in the good late May weather. Little did we know that Europe’s weather was about to collapse for the rest of the year. 🙁
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Banded Demoiselle (Calopteryx splendens)- Blue-tailed Damselfly (Ischnura elegans)
- Goblet-marked Damselfly (Erythromma lindenii)
- White-legged Damselfly (Platycnemis pennipes)
- Orange White-legged Damselfly (Platycnemis acutipennis)
- Emperor Dragonfly (Anax imperator)
- Western Clubtail (Gomphus pulchellus)
- Broad-bodied Chaser (Libellula depressa)
- Scarce Chaser (Libellula fulva)
- Black-tailed Skimmer (Orthetrum cancellatum)
Lacs de La Monnerie @ La Flèche
We spotted these potentially interesting lakes on our maps just a spit west of our campsite at La Flèche, so we thought we’d give them a try. They were not much further on than the stunning poppy fields to which we had been magnetically drawn. The lakes turned out to be a bit touristy in a leisure complex, base nautique kind of way but it was off season so relatively quiet.
We were pleasantly surprised to find a Southern Damselfly (Coenagrion mercuriale) lurking about here, though it didn’t really look like typical habitat for that species.
Here’s the list:
Banded Demoiselle (Calopteryx splendens)- Blue-tailed Damselfly (Ischnura elegans)
- Common Blue Damselfly (Enallagma cyathigerum)
- Southern Damselfly (Coenagrion mercuriale)
- White-legged Damselfly (Platycnemis acutipennis)
- Emperor Dragonfly (Anax imperator)
- Scarce Chaser (Libellula fulva)
- Black-tailed Skimmer (Orthetrum cancellatum)
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