The Villemarin campsite is an aire naturelle and is excellent … on six days of the week. We’d arrived on Friday having travelled from Fanjeaux and set up. We have been here before so we were somewhat prepared.

All was well until Saturday night. Villemarin is pretty much in the middle of nowhere, almost equidistant between Mèze and Marseillan. Well, ALMOST in the middle of nowhere.

Immediately adjacent is a neighbouring property that tends to host functions on Saturday nights. The functions, of course, come with accompanying music, either live, recorded or both, with absolutely no regard for the neighbours, in this case, us and our fellow campers.

Friday night had been bliss listening to a collection of Eurasian Scops Owls and their rhythmic hoots at 3-second intervals. The notes vary from owl to owl, I was a bit surprised to note.

Saturday night was an absolute nightmare. I’ve no idea what the function next door was but misgivings began on Saturday afternoon with what seemed like soundchecks for some live musicians. Sure enough, in the late evening the racket began, and it wasn’t Brahms 3rd racket.

Just when you think it’s finished, an alternative racket began which went on interminably until 03:00, by which time I’m over-tired, wound up tighter than a watch spring and can’t sleep anyway.

To add to the entertainment there was what I think must have been a rave going on all weekend, 24hrs a day. This, mercifully, was far enough away to cause no real nuisance. We’d heard this before on a previous visit, too, so it’s obviously a regular thing but it really isn’t a problem.

We had originally intended to stay until the following Sunday but couldn’t face another Saturday night so I went to pay up on Friday to leave this morning. Frodo needed to turn his wheels over, anyway.

As we were beginning to pull out our delightful French neighbours came over to bid “adieu”. As part of our conversation I wished them good luck for tonight. “Oh, we’re going to a hotel nearby”, they said. Bloody excellent! Oddly, that thought had crossed my mind to help me spend a long time here. These guys were actually doing it.

Francine’s initial cunning plan was to stop at a CCP at Cavalerie, just south of the wonderful Millau viaduct. CCPs (Camping Car Parks) are a useful but basic addition to the battery of places to stay with a Motor Home but are essentially car parks with a service point. Nonetheless, the location looked interesting.

We spent the early morning shopping in luxury at the Mèze Lidl, before calling in to the much more salubrious Caveau de Beauvignac right next door to stock up on our favourite Viognier and Picpoul de Pinet. Interestingly, their BiBs (not that we were buying BiBs) don’t seem any more expensive than many in supermarkets and the wine would certainly be superior.

As we were on the road, Francine developed plan B. Rather than a car park, she’d found a campsite with good reviews slightly short of our first destination at Cavalerie. This was at L’Hospitalet du Larzac, on the Plateau du Larzac in the Parc Naturel Régional des Grands Causses. [I’ve taken a bit of a liberty with the title since I don’t know if there’s a singular of Causses.] This is the high country around Millau. We’re at 800m and the picturesque climb up La Méridienne autoroute, the A75, lost us 5°C.

Reception at the campsite was in a bar [good start] and the price for a bona fide campsite is only about €3 more than a car park.

A bit of an aside at the risk of being repetitive, here’s something than I find baffling. Many motor home folks get awfully excited about staying on a free, or very cheap Aire de Camping Car, often gravel or tarmac areas. Of course, with European weather and 3500kg vehicles, hardstanding is sometimes necessary but why would you spend £70K on a motor home only to habitually scrimp on where to park it? Wouldn’t you like to be able to sit outside on grass, with a table and chairs [many Aires do not allow this] enjoying a decent environment? I know I would.

As we were pitching up I scared up absolute swarms of one particular type of moth, which I hadn’t even noticed was there. I missed it because the little tykes had been sitting hidden on the underside of the leaves. Walk past and up they flutter in a frenzy. I did manage to catch one that settled and forgot it was supposed to be on the underside of the leaf. Shortly after snapping it, however, it remembered its job description and hid. This is the notorious Box Tree Moth (Cydalima perspectalis) which is currently wreaking havoc to Box bushes in various parts of the UK. There are absolute swarms of ‘em here but, oddly, we haven’t seen any Box.

End of wildlife for today, it’s pissing with rain.

We are camped at Villemarin, approximately half way between the towns of Marseillan and Mèze. Our French neighbour, spotting our bikes, asked if we’d done the circuit of the Basin de Thau, which, he said, was about 60 kms. Arghh! “No”, we replied.

The route would go something like this: Villemarin to Mèze, on round the basin to Sète, thence down the long coastal sandbar to Marseillan Plage, up to Marseillan itself, then back to our campsite at Villemarin.

Enter Francine. Whilst in Mèze she’d spotted a relatively new navettes [ferry] which plugs between Mèze and Sète. The boat ride is 30 minutes and takes bikes as well as foot passengers. I could see it coming.

Naturally a brilliant idea formed in her head. We’d do the 10 kms to Mèze, clamber on the ferry to Sète, make our way a few kms through Sète, followed by the 14 kms down the sandbar to Marseillan Plage Lastly, about 6 kms would get us back up to Marseillan where we could refresh ourselves appropriately before finishing the last 6 kms to our campsite.

Off we set for the 10:40 ferry. Being one of the market days in Mèze , most of the traffic should be coming into Mèze rather than leaving.

The Mèze embarkation side is great – nice and flat. Disembarking in Sète is less than ideal, there’s a concrete staircase up which you have to man-handle your e-bikes complete with batteries; not easy especially when some dozy cow is blocking the exit gate wating to board. The helpful ferry man lugged Francine’s bike up the narrow steps for her. What he should have done was ram the handlebars into the dozy cow,

We started working our way through Sète, partly walking, partly riding. It was manic. You basically have to cross the town from north to south to get towards the sandbar. We found an accommodating bar for a well-earned couple of beers.

Signage for the cycle track was sometimes good and sometimes non-existent. Despite this, after a few head-scratching moments, we finally found ourselves on the 14kms concrete track along the sandbar heading towards Marseillan Plage.

They have a done a splendid job of restoring the sand dunes between the track and the sea. They’ve done such a good job that you can’t actually see the sea; all you can see is the concrete cycle track. It was 14kms of dreary tedium.

At long last we arrived at Marseillan Plage and, since it’s not our natural habitat, made our way back up to civilization in Marseillan itself by 13:30, where we managed to share three tapas dishes for lunch washed down by a bottle of Picpoul de Pinet – after an initial beer to slake the thirst..

We repeated our by now well trodden path back to Villemarin. The Police Municipale were all over a huge itinerant encampment which had recently established itself on the edge of Marseillan. Go fellas!

We can say that we’ve done at least most of the cycle route but we wouldn’t bother again.

Mèze has many things going for it.

Mèze has an excellent market twice a week, on Thursdays and Sundays. It does get a bit busy but then, in France, good markets always get a bit busy. They are something of a social occasion and long may they continue to be.

We timed our arrival to visit the Sunday market. Approaching the market area, once having parked our e-bikes, Francine spotted a wonderfully besequinned lady making her way to market dragging what appeared to be a fully coordinated shopping trolley.  The trolley stopped short of the sequins.

At one end of the market was a stall offering tasting plates of half a dozen oysters, complete with lemon, for a princely €5. The stall conveniently sat opposite a bar selling glasses of white wine to wash them down at €3 a pop. Well, you just have to, don’t you? It would be rude not to. We had a plate each. At that price these were not the largest oysters but they were nonetheless very good and hit the spot perfectly.

Mèze sits on the shore of the Basin de Thau, where the local oysters are farmed. Being on the shores of the Mediterranean, it enjoys a high number of sunny days with clear blue skies. Naturally it has a port which is very picturesque and is surrounded by a number of good restaurants, mostly specializing in the excellent local seafood. The curious looking boats in the foreground of the picture, by the way, are for the lance Mèzoise, a curious form of jousting on boats.

When we’re in Mèze , we always like to indulge in a plateau de fruits de mer to help satisfy our love of seafood even further. This fine platter, of course, should have a glass of Ricard as an overture, then be accompanied by a nicely chilled bottle of Picpoul de Pinet, one of the excellent local white wines. I think given the geography of the Basin de Thau, almost but not quite being closed off from the sea, the salinity of the water here is high and consequently its oysters seem noticeably saltier than those we tasted from La Rochelle on the west coast earlier in this trip. I think I actually preferred those from La Rochelle, not that these were bad.

So to another of the great benefits of Mèze. A short distance away in the village of Pomérols (not to be confused with Pomerol, without an “s” or an accent, in the Bordeaux region) is the caveau de Beauvignac which has to be our absolute favourite winemaker. As well as doing a top drawer Picpoul de Pinet (Pinet being another village close by), Beauvignac sells what is, in my estimation, the best white Viognier going. At least, it’s the best my under-educated palate has tasted. I haven’t found it readily available in the UK, which may be just as well, but we cannot leave this area without buying a case or two.

This is idyllic. What is the point of returning to Bedfordshire? This is the place; this is where I would kill to live. I may have to.

Having determined to leave, the morning at Fanjeaux dawned blue. This, however, proved to be like a classic English false dawn in that it soon began to cloud over.

We’d been invited for a coffee at the owners’ farm house and we called in at 09:00 to bid them farewell. As we were leaving just before 10:00 the blue sky had all but disappeared. Not that I doubted it for one minute but we’d made the right decision.

We had decided to head for the Mèze area. It’s one of our favourites. In truth, it’s where I want to live. Mèze is a pleasant town with a delightful harbour surrounded by decent seafood restaurants featuring, of course, wonderful oysters from the Basin de Thau, on which it nestles.

The most convenient campsite for this area, for those with bicycles, anyway, is the camping municipal at Loupian. Being a municipal it is, of course, not flash but that suits us. We’ve stayed there several times.

After our earlier visits, the Loupian campsite became an ACSI site. ACSI is a Dutch camping organization and is, in my book, little short of the mark of the Devil. ACSI offers a fixed price “deal” for two with electricity. It acts as a magnet for the deal-seeking Dutch, taking custom away from independent sites and concentrating custom on the ACSI sites. So, Loupian is now much busier than it ever used to be.

Enter 2024: with the weather over most of France being as bad as it was in the UK, Provence and the Mediterranean coast have reportedly been inundated by campers that might otherwise be enjoying other parts of France. We’ve seen posts saying, “Provence is full”.

We arrived at Loupian at about 11:30 – the accueil closes between 12:00 and 14:00. Provence wasn’t all that was full, Loupian was also full. Honestly, with the weather and the swarming Dutch, I had feared as much. This is only the 2nd time we’ve seen a full campsite in the 40+ years that we’ve been camping in France. The last time was over 30 years ago during the main holiday season and on that occasion, since there wasn’t a nearby alternative, the owner allowed us to stay on the hardstanding outside the gates and use the facilities.

Bother! On to plan B.

There was a desperation plan C which was a CCP (like an Aire de Camping Car) nearby but a few years ago we had discovered Camping Villemarin, an aire naturelle, about half way between Mèze and Marseillan, 5kms to either. We headed for that with all our fingers crossed.

It’s only a spit and we arrived before midday so wouldn’t disturb lunch. I asked if there was a pitch, and the owner asked for how many nights. I tried four. He consulted his manual booking system. Thumbs up – excellent! We were shown to the same pitch we’d had last year and were very happy. We settled down to lunch.

Clearly trying to find another pitch in the sunny bits of the south of France given this year’s situation was going to prove difficult. We began to wonder how long we might be able to stay. I went and asked. Our pitch didn’t seem to be booked for a good while so we could essentially stay as long as we wanted. We’re here until June 30th. Brilliant! Of course, we may have to have a couple of plateaux de fruits de mer while we’re here. Well, rude not to, really.

We were enjoying a sunny afternoon, nicely relaxed since we had a home until we had to head north, when I spotted an odd “discolouration” on Frodo. Upon closer inspection, the discolouration proved to be a little clutch of shieldbug nymphs still around their egg cases. Given being inundated by Brown Marmorated Shieldbugs here last year, I performed a quick internet search and, sure enough, these were 1st instars of the same beast. We’d imported several, inside Frodo, back to the UK and now Frodo had given birth to the next generation. Quite why the female had chosen to oviposit on Frodo, with no ready food supply for her offspring, I know not. These little guys are hardly 2mm across. The egg cases look interesting, too, with a sort of black butterfly design on them.

I saw that three at least, of the diminutive siblings, had broken away from the cluster and gone walkabouts, perhaps in search of a non-existent food source. There are apparently about 100 food plants but a Ford transit based motor home isn’t one of ‘em. I may have to try relocating the little darlings to try to give them a fighting chance.

So, the net result of this is that we’ve figured out one of the main breaches in biosecurity. The Brown Marmorated Shieldbug was apparently first reported in England in 2021. Given our experiences of ferrying them to England from southern France in 2023, I would not be surprised to learn that it was motor homes and caravans returning from the continent that were responsible.

We’ve done our usual thing and stayed a little too long at Fanjeaux.

The 2024 late spring/early summer weather continues to be unsettled in France, including southern France, and we have been treated to a series of skies that would best be described as UK-like, namely solid grey overcast. We did have a sunny day three or four days ago and a couple of afternoons that brightened but lasting impression is one of grey.

Today we managed a morning walk into Fanjeaux for the bread run and enjoyed a coffee at the Café des Arts. On our way back, since we had decided it was definitely time to move on, we called in at the farm to pay for our 6-night stay.

As we were descending from the farm to the campsite it began spitting. We had timed our return well because, shortly after re-joining Frodo, it began raining properly, at first relatively lightly but quite soon with more intent. It began chucking it down and thrashed for the rest of the afternoon. Our bike cover was transformed into a paddling pool or two. It’s the summer solstice, we’re in the south of France and the weather is crap.

It rained all evening. I can’t wait to move on.

This year’s spring and early summer (if you count this as summer before the solstice) has been famously atrocious, not only in the UK but in a lot of France as well. Although farmer Luc at Les Brugues, Fanjeaux, says late winter and spring were quite dry here, I have never seen such a lack of insects around and over his irrigation lake. We’ve seen ones and twos of a couple of handfuls of odonata species but the numbers are dreadful. It really is pitiful.

There is a dearth of birds on the lake, too. A resident Grey Heron is sometimes to be seen, who does his/her best to eat some of the fish but we need more, and preferably something that will take huge fish measuring half a metre. A pair of large Pike would be handy. We saw a Mink here last year but not now.

We’ve been forced to use a different pitch because someone was occupying our favoured pitch for Frodo, and this has proved quite successful. We’ve heard a decent collection of birds from our new vantage point. Using the Merlin app to recognise bird calls we apparently have a Wryneck locally, though we’ve haven’t managed to see it.

Our usual suspects include the good ol’ Chaffinch, Serins, Blackcaps, Starlings (which may be Spotless), Goldfinches and the delightfully fluty-sounding Golden Oriole, amongst others.

Chief amongst the others, certainly for entertainment value, has been a small collection of Spotted Flycatchers. These fabulous little birds have tirelessly been using various posts around our pitch as vantage points from which to hunt.

Early one morning (just as the sun was rising – well, early for me, that is), I spotted a Spotted Flycatcher regularly using a post with the sun behind it. I thought that might make an interesting subject if I could get it with backlit wings. I positioned a chair, focussed on the post and waited with my camera on “pro capture mode”, which buffers and discards shots until you fully depress the firing button.

It’s a handy feature but still relies on a good deal of fortune when it comes to wing position, which is entirely random. I kept trying as the bird was launching itself after a fly and I think I managed one half-way reasonable attempt.

Then I realised that the bird returning to the post might actually produce something better. Once the bird had taken off, I’d been stopping. Now I decided to keep going and wait for it to return. At last, one of my attempts, and only one, produced something I really like, the Flycatcher just about to settle on the post again, with its wings flared..

I don’t know how long I sat trying but I managed to fire off 861 images (the camera runs at 10 frames per second in this mode). I kept just a small handful. Thank Darwin I wasn’t using real film.

Any regular readers of this will know that I’ve been monitoring dragonflies and damselflies on this site for many years. It used to be an absolute haven for odonata. Following the admittance of a Koi Carp farmer many years ago, the populations crashed. Last year we saw very few. Though the fish farmer is no more, the populations don’t appear to be recovering, probably because the lake is still full of huge Grass Carp and still some Koi.

We made a circumperambulation of the lake seeing almost nothing; even less than last year. So, having almost completed the circle, I was very surprised to see an inundated Emperor dragonfly struggling on the surface of the water. I know I shouldn’t interfere but I couldn’t stand by and watch this beautiful creature drown. I extended my monopod and offered it a lifeline. It naturally grabbed it enthusiastically.

It was a female Lesser Emperor (Anax parthenope). I picked her off my monopod onto my hand. She stayed and repeatedly cleaned her eyes with her forelegs.

She remained on my hand, drying off and, perhaps, warming up from my body heat after her chilling experience. She had lost most of her left fore-wing but eventually she exercised her remaining wings and then flew off, less strongly than one might expect but at least she could fly.

Later in the afternoon we were visited by a small critter, about 6mm long, than seemed keen on our black camping table. I broke out the small camera and macro lens to try to capture it, though being dark against black, it felt tricky. All was well though. It’s a Plant Hopper that seems to think it’s a Table Hopper (Issus coleoptratus). Very cute.

As we hadn’t begun by knowing where we’d end up yesterday, we weren’t initially sure where to head to today. Normally from here, there’d be no debate, we’d drop into Les Brugues at Fanjeaux, at least for a couple of days, to catch up with people who had now become firm friends.

This year is far from normal, though. Not only has Britain been suffering atrocious spring and early summer weather but so has France – at least, northern France. Reading an article on the Beeb, the reason is apparently that blasted Jetstream which, for reasons best known to itself, is turning so far south over the Atlantic that it is smacking into Spain when it veers east. At this time of year it would be expected to be north of the southern part of the British Isles. The Met Office can currently see no end it sight to the rubbish weather. Oh joy!

The forecast for the coming weekend has been pretty much pants over the whole of France. We were thinking of heading for the Mediterranean coast near Mèze, thence to Provence. Provence, though, looks pretty much full ‘cos that’s what everyone in France has been doing.

An updated forecast suggested that Fanjeaux may not be quite as bad as originally thought so we adjusted our sights and decided to go there after all.

‘T was a mere 160kms from Donzac to Fanjeaux so we had time to go and look at the village of Donzac before setting sail. We wandered into the village and had a coffee at a local store. The place is filled with Olympic rings and Olympic Torch markers beside the road which made us think that perhaps the torch would pass through here on its journey to Paris.

Having wandered around the village and seen a number of inventive bird box art exhibits, we returned to Frodo to hit the road for Fanjeaux. After a brief stop at the motor van service point to dump our waste water and fill up the fresh, we were on the road.

The journey happily was a breeze, Toulouse was flowing smoothly and we were soon nearing Bram, just below Fanjeaux, for a shopping stop at their Carrefour supermarket.

From there, we arrived at Les Brugues to find a sign saying they were absent for the afternoon and to go and site yourself.

We did and, since a tent had grabbed our favoured Frodo pitch, we found another which seems very suitable.

‘T was time to move on. We had originally intended to stay in Arçais for four days but, with our late lamented friend’s formalities over, we had stayed for eight, largely because the weather was favourable and we could now have time to ourselves.

Overnight we had had rain, occasionally quite heavy, but the ground looked OK this morning. We did our packing up duties, including filing Frodo with fresh water (our 100 ltr tank had lasted the whole eight days) and prepared to set sail for … we weren’t sure where but we’d work it out as we headed south. Or, rather, Francine would.

Finally I disconnected the electrics and climbed into the driving seat. I turned the key Frodo’s engine gave a reluctant half turn over then stopped. A couple of messages flashed up on the screen:

1. Fuel tank low, 3kms to empty [OK];
2. Hill start assist not available [OK], pre-collision warning not available [OK].

No, of course it’s not friggin’ OK.

Another oddity was that the fuel gauge slowly began climbing whereas usually it jumps up to the current level.

#1 was complete bollocks, I’d very deliberately topped up our tank at the supermarket as we arrived; it was full. Clearly I hadn’t leaked 60ltrs of diesel into the grass, I’d have noticed.

#2 was interesting ‘cos I didn’t even know I should have had hill start assist but that was all, I could care less. Pre-collision warning I did know about and it sometimes fails in some conditions (condensation over the sensor?) in an earlyish morning.

I did care about the engine not starting. I turned the key again with exactly the same result. A third turn of the key changed nothing, I was beginning to feel stuck and muttered, “I think we’re f****d”, to Francine, as I began to think of invoking Red Pennant assistance.

In a last desperate measure I turned everything off hoping to reboot the system and begin Frodo’s pre-flight procedures again. With much relief, after an initial sluggish turn over, the engine turned over a second time and burst into life. [SIGH]

I think Frodo liked his pitch in Arçais so much that he didn’t want to leave.

I wasn’t about to turn the engine off. I had wondered about a flat battery but, like the non empty tank, why would that be? We’ve been stationary for eight days before with no hitch. With the crazy warning messages, I could only think of moisture from last night’s rain causing a glitch.

Engine still running in case it was a low battery, I retrieved our levelling blocks and headed for our first stop which was a motor vehicle servicing point on the other side of Arçais to empty our grey water. I left the engine running while I did this, too.

Our next stop was to be at the Super-U in Magné, the same supermarket where I had filled Frodo’s diesel tank, to fill our fridge. Here, I would have to turn off the engine but I’d travelled 15kms so, you never know.

We shopped and returned to Frodo. Francine loaded the fridge. I turned the ignition and all was well, the fuel gauge leapt up to full, no stupid messages appeared and the engine fired faultlessly.

We were on our way to somewhere.

Somewhere turned out to be an Aire de Camping Car in a tiny village called Donzac. Tis was one of the same chain we’d used at Troyes. Francine tapped a few things into the automated accueil machine, coughed up a princely €7 for the night including electricity and water. How cheap is that? Added to this the site was all gravelled so we’d have no issue getting stuck in mud.

The site partly surrounded the village fishing lake; it was a very pleasant environment. In our usual unsociable fashion we found ourselves the end pitch overlooking nothing but a patch of grass and a hedge with no need to stare at any neighbours.

We’ve made these vehicle systems too clever but not clever enough. If your AdBlue tank runs dry, your diesel vehicle just won’t start. I’m now wondering if this was a similar “refuse to start” situation because it thought I had no fuel. The trouble is, when the warning system itself fails you’re stuffed for no good reason. I’ve got a fuel tank full and the battery is fine, just go for pity’s sake.

All went smoothly for our late, lamented friend’s celebration of life. We had intended to move on on Monday 10th but, since we have a very pleasant pitch on the pleasingly rural campsite in Arçais, and with the weather looking set fair here until Friday, we’ve extended our stay. This has given us a chance to explore the area on our bikes a little, having already had a few opportunities to explore on foot.

Our visits to the marais have spanned 18 years but we had a gap of about eight years up until 2023. When we returned then, which turned out to be the last time we’d see our friend, the change in the marsh seemed remarkable.

The Marais Poitevin is a network of canals and drainage ditches of various sizes; the French have five names for canal depending on size and perhaps purpose. It is called the Venice Verte and earned that nickname due many of its water courses being utterly smothered in green duck weed. This example is from 2006.

Our earlier visits predated my obsession with dragonflies but we’ve always been keen on nature and the marsh was a haven for it. We subsequently found it to be a good hunting ground for dragonflies, hence our continued visits.

Something has changed and quite dramatically. We are not seeing canals carpeted in green. Indeed, I don’t think we’ve seen any green covering at all; all look much like this.

It’s not just the green that’s missing, the plethora of dragonflies seems to have become a paucity of dragonflies. The small canal and ditches surrounding our campsite used to be home to many Orange Featherleg (Platycnemis acutipennis) damselflies, now there are none. When we wandered along one of the larger water courses on the way to our friends’ house, last year we saw a handful of Blue Chaser (Libellula fulva) dragonflies, this year we saw none. In previous years we had seen many. Some of recent bike rides have taken us over bridges that spanned several water courses where we were used to seeing various odonata, this time we saw none at all but one point where we saw a handful of one species.

Birdlife may also have been affected. We are used to hearing the frenetic song of the European Serin but we haven’t heard one. There are still some Golden Orioles singing but we haven’t heard the subdued “hoo, hoo, hoo” of a Hoopoe.

It’s all quite concerning.

Admittedly, the weather may be playing a part. In the same way that the 2024 weather has been pitiful in the UK, so it has in much of France. Some of the fields of the marsh show obvious signs of flooding and some of the roads have relatively recently been closed due to floods. Indeed, our campsite has only relatively recently opened after being water-logged.

Flooded ground would ruin the food source of Hoopoes.

We were told that sewage used to be discharged into the waters of the marsh. Relatively recently a sewage system has apparently been put in and the act cleaned up. That should be a good thing, surely, but is that responsible for the lack of duck weed? It looks as if the whole ecology of the marsh has altered.

Late breaking update: we’ve walked further along the water course below our friends’ house and have, at last, seen some odonata activity, including some Orange Featherlegs (Platycnemis acutipennis) and a few Blue Chasers (Libellula fulva). So, they may be much reduced in number but at least some remain.