A male Downy Emerald dragonfly (cordulia aenea), known as Smaragaid Umha-dhaite in Irish, pictured in Connemara last weekend. The National Biodiversity Data Centre is leading a dragonfly and damselfly survey over the next few years in order to build an overall picture of the populations of the various species across the entire island. Even if it’s not possible to register as an official monitor or recorder, it is still possible to record individual sightings on the website. Citizen science at its best (remember,kids, the only difference between screwing around and science is writing it down).
As it happens, the specimen above had not been recorded before at the location that I photographed it. It is now.