I was having a lovely time watching the antics of the Mute swan cygnets (Eight cygnets, 18 May) when this little damselfly flitted up from the water a couple of metres below where I was standing and settled on the path by my feet. I’m happy to admit that I had no idea which species it was but I did think it ‘looked different’ and so was happily surprised that it stayed put while I took lots of photographs.

At home, once I’d gone through my images, I trawled through my guide book and checked online websites, but I couldn’t work out what this damselfly was. So, as often happens, I posted some photos on Twitter/X and asked for help. Two people popped up with Red-eyed damselfly (Erythromma najas, also known as Large redeye) as a possibility, one of them tagged a local dragonfly recorder, and I tagged Dave Smallshire, co-author of the Europe’s Dragonflies guide book.

Within a couple of hours, the identification had been confirmed, though the gender took a little longer to determine. Dave Smallshire came to the rescue: ‘It’s a newly-emerged male Red-eyed Damselfly. ID is always tricky with teneral, but this has pale terminal segments and lacks pale ‘shoulder’ stripe.’ As well as being a lifer for me, my find was in a new site for Cardiff, and the following day both a male and female were seen, so I’m excited to go back myself and look for more.