Back at the end of April I wrote about my first dragonfly sighting of the year – only it turned out to be a damselfly, not a dragonfly, and I blogged about my first lesson in telling the two families apart. That gorgeous creature was a female of the very aptly named Beautiful Demoiselle (Calopteryx Virgo) species. Since then I’ve been lucky enough to see many more Beautiful Demoiselles, including the equally handsome metallic blue-green male of the species. I’ve also seen many other types of damselflies and some, though not as many, dragonflies (the 4-spotted chaser featured in one blog, and the Broad-bodied chaser in another).

You may not know it but today is the first day of National Dragonfly Week 2016, which this year runs from Saturday 23rd to Sunday 31st July. It’s the brainchild of the British Dragonfly Society, which exists to record dragonfly numbers and to educate people about dragonflies and their habitats in order to aid with their conservation. The society and other wildlife groups will be holding events throughout the week to raise awareness of damsel and dragonflies – you can see more on the BDS website – and I will be highlighting a different species each day this week as my own way of celebrating these heavenly creatures.