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In La Brenne and Vienne, there’s a wide range of very good quality wetland areas, which equates to high dragonfly diversity! You can hope to see upwards of about 40 species on the 8-day holiday (more species than are found in the whole of the UK).
Lilypad Whiteface by David Smallshire
La Brenne and Vienne are the first really rich dragonfly areas you reach as you travel south of the English Channel. In fact, the La Brenne and Vienne region falls within an east-west band stretching right across Europe to Russia which marks the zone of maximum diversity of dragonflies in Europe.
In La Brenne, some of the special dragonfly species we’ll be hoping to find include Lilypad Whiteface and Yellow-spotted Emerald. Known as the land of 1,000 lakes, the multitude of wetland areas in the region we visit not only hold a wonderful array of dragonflies, but also special birdlife such as breeding herons, egrets, bitterns, as well as Whiskered Tern and Black-necked Grebe. There are orchids here too, and we’ll try and find the La Brenne Orchid among many others.
In Vienne we visit a heathland area called Pinail where we’ll look for Yellow-spotted Whiteface. There are over 3,000 small water-filled holes here and millions of dragonflies are found here at this time of year – we should see them holding these small ponds as territories. Orange-spotted Emeralds are found in the étangs as well as clubtails, Western Spectre and many species of butterfly including the beautiful Purple Emperor.
For more information on our 'Dragonflies of La Brenne & Vienne' holiday, click here.