Common and very, very blue
The Common Blue Damselfly, Enellagma cyathigerurm, is flying and perching now, skimming low over freshwater ponds and lakes or dodging the air …
Odonata
There’s a Keeled Skimmer Dragonfly, Orthetrum coerulescens, above this tiny stream in Rome. It’s a female and has the distinctive black line …
Banded Demoiselle
Here’s a Banded Demoiselle (Calopteryx splendens) from this summer: They get better the closer you look: If you have any children in …
Delicate wings at Fen Drayton Lakes
There’s a Broad-Bodied Chaser dragonfly rattling around me at RSPB Fen Drayton Lakes: There are plenty of damselflies on the reeds in …
Demoiselled if you do, demoiselled if you don’t
Last year I took a photograph of the Large Red Damselfly: Large Red Damselfly I was really pleased with my photograph. This …
Trying to identify Damselflies in distress
There’s a Damselfly in front of me at RSPB Ham Wall. It’s brown and black. There aren’t any brown and black species …
Half an hour of nature
Tonight there’s a brief chance for a walk to the local park. It has a large lake and a small pond. The …
Azure Damselflies
Calling a Damselfly the ‘Azure Damselfly’ makes it sound much more exotic than if you called it the Blue Damselfly. There are, …
Demoiselled if you do
Beautiful Demoiselles are beautiful by name and vicious killers by nature. I see a male clasping a fern, here on the side …
A walk around a blade of grass
It’s Day 13 of #30DaysWild, the scheme run by the Wildlife Trusts to get people to have wild experiences in June. I’ve …
Large Red Damselfly
There’s a Large Red Damselfly in the Park. It’s large, it’s red and it’s a Damselfly. Some people really do lack an imagination when it comes to names.
Beautiful Demoiselle
There’s a female Beautiful Demoiselle perched next to the pond. I can tell it’s a female because it’s got white spots on …
A Damselfly with a blue tail
There’s a Damselfly with a blue stripe on its tail over the water in Somerset: It’s a Blue-Tailed Damselfly, Ischnura elegans.
Variable Damselfly
There’s a Variable Damselfly Coenagrion pulchellum near the pond. They fly from May to August. The British Dragonfly Society (yes, there really …