Atlas of Dragonflies in Britain and Ireland

Edited by Steve Cham, Brian Nelson, Adrian Parr, Steve Prentice, Dave Smallshire and Pam Taylor

Published by Fields Study council ISBN 978 1 906698 49 2

Hard back, 280 pages, Price £32.00 + £5 postage direct from FSC

With so many bird watchers turning their attention to dragonflies this atlas should be on many of their book cases. Even the close field of view binoculars are tested when studying this family and I too, have been drawn into ‘twitching’ one or two species as they arrived in North Cumbria like Lesser Emperor, Black tailed Skimmer and Red veined Darter. The book’s photos are masterpieces showing both dragonfly and habitats as well as large scale maps of distribution. Each individual species has chapters on distribution, habitat, conservation status and threats along with national trends Weather is shown as key factors for many species and individual wetland habitats are described in detail. An amazing 57 species are covered showing the gains and losses with 42 of these actually breeding here and 31% actually expanding their range and 19% declining. 9 new species have occurred in Britain for the first time since 1990 and 5 in Ireland. The Hobby has made its ‘Hobby’ enjoying Dragonflies and with this book you can as well!