We have not returned to France for the last four years, in some ways because of our house in Spain, but largely also because of Covid-19 more recently. September 2022 provided our opportunity to cross the Channel again and renew friendships at our favourite campsite in Fanjeaux. Being late in the season, this was more about returning to France than hunting dragonflies.
Our plan, which in hindsight turned out to be a bit of a mistake, was originally to spend about three weeks of a 4-week trip at Fanjeaux. About half way down France is Rosnay in La Brenne, with its very pleasant but unassuming camping municipal, complete with lake and dragonflies. We’d stay there for a few nights to recuperate before completing the journey south.
As it turned out, we both began to get itchy feet at Fanjeaux and cut our stay down to two weeks. It was undoubtedly good to have renewed our friendship with the dairy sheep farm campsite owners but we grew to need a change. We decided to head off to an area between Marseillan and Meze, with which we’re familiar, but to a campsite new to us.
To be honest, it’s been an unscintillating year for dragonflies and a bad year for many other insects. This trip followed that pattern though it has to be said I didn’t put myself out.
Rosnay, Camping Municipal, 1st-4th Sept [#1]
This is a classic, unassuming camping municipal; no frills just a pleasant rural simple campsite. It is well positioned in La Brenne which, in a higher point of the season, is a hotbed of dragonfly activity. As well as having a lake itself, there are many locations with plenty of reason for study nearby. This was really just a few days stopover for a rest from the first part of the journey to prepare ourselves for the second leg to Fanjeaux.
I was very pleased to see Southern Darters here which were new to me at this location. Curiously, though I saw at least a dozen on reeds around the lake, they all proved to be females with not a male in sight – mine anyway.
- Ischnura elegans (Common Bluetail)
- Platycnemis pennipes (Blue Featherleg)
- Sympetrum meridionale (Southern Darter)
Fanjeaux, Camping Les Brugues, 5th-20th Sept [#2]
A site I’ve been monitoring for many years that was relatively recently wrecked by being used to farm Koi Carp. The fish farmer has now been gone for 6 or 7 years, though. I was keen to see how it might be recovering, or otherwise, in the four years since we were last here.
Sadly, I suspect the answer is that it isn’t really recovering, certainly not to its former glory when it comes to dragonfly habitat. There are still huge carp in the lake, not Koi but I presumed the Grass Carp that destroyed all the floating vegetation and which is still utterly absent. I did see several species but only in low numbers. Most entertaining was the delightful Violet Dropwing (Trithemis annulata). New to this site for me was the Migrant Hawker (Aeshna mixta). I have a sneaking suspicion that there was an Emerald, probably a Yellow-spotted Emerald (Somatochlora flavomaculata), flying around but it’s unconfirmed.
- Ischnura elegans (Common Bluetail)
- Chalcolestes viridis (Western Willow Spreadwing)
- Erythromma lindenii (Blue-eye)
- Platycnemis pennipes (Blue Featherleg)
- Aeshna cyanea (Southern Hawker)
- Aeshna mixta (Migrant Hawker)
- Anax imperator (Blue Emperor)
- Orthetrum cancellatum (Black-tailed Skimmer)
- Crocothemis erythraea (Broad Scarlet)
- Sympetrum striolatum (Common Darter)
- Trithemis annulata (Violet Dropwing)
Lac de Lenclas , 9th Sept [#3]
One of my favourite sites, normally, relatively close to Fanjeaux. On this occasion we chase a poor day to visit and the weather was not in our favour; it began raining soon after we arrived. We saw just two species and the camera didn’t come out.
- Platycnemis pennipes (Blue Featherleg)
- Trithemis annulata (Violet Dropwing)
Gruissan, Canal de la Robine, 19th Sept [#4] 
This is on our usual route back to the autoroute from Gruissan. It’s never exactly heaving and now it certainly wasn’t though I did finally find my first male Southern Darter (Sympetrum meridionale) of the trip.
- Ischnura elegans (Common Bluetail)
- Sympetrum meridionale (Southern Darter)
Marseillan, Camping Villemarin, 21st-26th Sept [#5]
This really was just opportunistic. The main track in the modest campsite, an aire naturelle of 25 pitches, was named avenue des libellules. There were indeed a few libellules zooming about but only two species that I could determine.
- Chalcolestes viridis (Western Willow Spreadwing)
- Sympetrum meridionale (Southern Darter)
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