Tag Archives: damselfly

196/365 Ether’s nild

15 Monday Jul 2019

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The damselfly and the devil – not a combination I’d have thought of but this, from Paul Evans, Field Notes from the Edge: Journeys through Britain’s secret wilderness (Rider, London, 2015) is fascinating:

In her novel Precious Bane, Mary Webb … used a Shropshire name for damselfly, ether’s nild: the ether or adder’s nild or needle because of its shape and stitching flight. Country lore had it that damselflies hovered over an adder coiled in the heath or bog as lookouts for their venomous master or mistress … Elsewhere called the Devil’s darning-needle, naughty children, scolding women and swearing men were warned that the damselfly would come and sew their eyes and mouths shut if they did not mend their ways.

190715 blue-tailed damselfly

The damselflies in my images are both Blue-tailed damselflies (Ischnura elegans). The females come in five different colour variations – this, with the reddish thorax, is called rufescens.

190715 blue-tailed damselfly rufescens

The day of the Demoiselles

28 Thursday Jun 2018

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I chose Forest Farm Nature Reserve for my wander on day 28 of #30DaysWild, to take advantage of the large shady trees, and I’m very glad I did because it was another scorcher. As well as the thrill of seeing my very first White-letter hairstreak butterfly (along with many other butterfly species), I was particularly delighted by the Beautiful demoiselle damselflies (Calopteryx virgo). Their iridescent colours sparkled in the dappled sunlight as they flitted back and forth along the old Glamorgan Canal. Fairies!

180628 Beautiful demoiselle female

Beautiful Demoiselle female, showing dark brown wings and white wing spot

180628 Beautiful demoiselle male

Beautiful Demoiselle male, showing dark blue wings and no white wing spot

Critters at RSPB Ham Wall

13 Tuesday Jun 2017

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The only problem with going on a birding trip is that, in order to get photos of the birdies, I usually have my long lens on my camera, which means it’s then not easy to get photos of all the lovely smaller creatures I see as I’m walking around. And both RSPB Ham Wall Nature Reserve and, just across the road, Shapwick Heath National Nature Reserve have a profusion of delightful, and sometimes rare smaller creatures to be seen.

170613 Shapwick Heath

In particular, we saw a wealth of damsel- and dragonflies, including several of the Four-spotted chasers and Black-tailed skimmers shown below and, we think, the unusual Variable damselfly (though this can be tricky to identify). Spiders were particularly abundant on the path-side scrub, as were Dock beetles, judging from all the holey leaves we saw.

170613 RSPB Ham Wall critters (1)

170613 RSPB Ham Wall critters (2)

We rescued several large hairy caterpillars which were determinedly marching across the paths but risked annihilation from feet and bicycle tyres, as well as one large and very friendly Caddisfly (above). Butterflies weren’t as plentiful as I expected, though we did see good numbers of very fresh Small tortoiseshells, presumably newly hatched.

The most unexpected sighting, and a highlight for me, was a Roe deer on the canal-side bank in Shapwick Heath. Only its head and its very large ears could be seen, as it munched happily on a large green mouthful of vegetation while keeping a close eye on our admiring group of photographers.

170613 Roe deer

As I mentioned in yesterday’s piece on the birds of Ham Wall, you really need a week to explore these superb reserves thoroughly and then you might be lucky enough to see their resident water voles and otters. I have to go back!

National Dragonfly Week: Azure damselfly

30 Saturday Jul 2016

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As I mentioned in yesterday’s post on Common Blue damselflies, it’s often difficult to distinguish between them and the Azure damselflies so here now is the lovely little Azure (Coenagrion puella).

azure male (1)azure male (2)

The key identifying features for the Azure are: the presence of a Coenagrion spur (a short black line below the other markings) on the thorax, and thin antehumeral stripes (the blue stripes on the top of the body are narrower than the black stripes beneath them). The males also have a U-shaped mark at the top of their ‘tail’ but this is not so easy to see in the females (which are usually green or pale blue) as they often have darker markings on their ‘tail’. Once again, if this is confusing, check out the British Dragonfly Society webpage for more help.

azure fem (1)

Though the Azure isn’t keen on the colder parts of northern Scotland, both the Azure and the Common Blue can be seen throughout most of Britain, fluttering around small ponds, streams and lakes. I also see them amongst the long grass at my local cemetery where I presume their water source is the rain that accumulates in the urns that decorate many of the older graves, though I can’t be sure of that.

azure mating (1)

National Dragonfly Week: Common Blue damselfly

29 Friday Jul 2016

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We’re over half way through National Dragonfly Week 2016 and now we get to some of the trickier critters to identify because there are several blue-coloured damselflies. In fact, in the course of preparing this and tomorrow’s blog posts, I’ve had to call in the experts to check a couple of my photos. When my books and keys don’t quite cover it, the ‘experts’ I use are all the wonderfully helpful folks on the UK Dragonflies & Damselflies group on Facebook – highly recommended!

As we don’t get Southern damselflies (also blue) in Cardiff, the two blues I sometimes have trouble with are the Common Blue and the Azure. The key features to look out for in the Common Blue damselfly (Enallagma cyathigerum) can be seen in the photos above: no Coenagrion spur (a short black line below the other markings) on the thorax, and broad antehumeral stripes (the blue stripes on the top of the body are wider than the black stripes beneath them). The males also have that thistle-shaped mark at the top of their ‘tail’ but this is not so easy to see in the females (which, as you can see below, are not blue) because of their blacker markings. If this all sounds like gobbledygook, you can get more ID help on the British Dragonfly Society webpage.

The Common Blues are the only damselflies I’ve managed to catch in their full mating ritual, showing the ‘mating wheel’. Sometimes, when you see these, they are the exact shape of a heart … awwwww!

160729 Common blue mating

National Dragonfly Week: Blue-tailed Damselfly

28 Thursday Jul 2016

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Let’s continue National Dragonfly Week today with a delightful damselfly, the little Blue-tailed (Ischnura elegans), another very common damselfly that can be seen flying throughout Britain from May through to September. Though there is also a Scarce blue-tailed damselfly, it is, well, scarce, so chances are if you see a dark-coloured damsel with that distinctive all-blue segment towards the end of its body, it will be the Blue-tailed damselfly. The females are a little more tricky, as their abdomens and tail spots can be different colours – pink, violet, pale green, pale brown – depending on their type and state of maturity.

160728 blue-tailed (1)

160728 blue-tailed (2)

I don’t have any female photos so thought I would show you, instead, earlier stages in a damselfly’s lifecycle. The eggs the females lay in their local pond, lake, or slow-moving stream or river hatch into nymphs that live in that water, preying on other larvae and small insects. After as little as six months or as long as two years, and having gone through a series of skin moults as their bodies grow in size, the nymphs leave the water and climb a plant stem, branch or tree trunk, where they undergo the ultimate change, emerging from their final skin to fly as an adult.

As you can see above, they are often very pale when they emerge as it takes them a while to colour up. You can often find the discarded skin cases (known as exuvia) near watery places – I found a tree alongside my local lake that was covered in them.

National Dragonfly Week: Large Red damsel

24 Sunday Jul 2016

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For day two of National Dragonfly Week we have another damselfly, the Large Red (Pyrrhosoma nymphula). Of the 20 species of damselfly found in Britain, there are only two that are red and the other, the Small Red, is rare and confined to specific heathland areas, so the chances are that if you see a mainly red damselfly (the females have varying amounts of red and black on their abdomens), it is the Large Red. If only all damselfly identification were so easy!

160724 Large red (1)

The Large Red is one of the first damselflies to appear each spring, flying from early to mid April through to September, and can be found throughout Britain wherever there’s fresh water – ponds, canals, lakes, boggy areas and slow-moving rivers (not fast) – with some vegetation around for it to perch on.

160724 Large red (2)

Mr Large Red can be quite aggressive, buzzing other males foolish enough to invade his territory. When they mate, the male clamps on to the female just behind her head, as you can see in my photo above, and she would normally then bend her body around to attach to his reproductive organs, thus forming the ‘mating wheel’. Maybe this female just wasn’t that into him!

National Dragonfly Week: Beautiful Demoiselle

23 Saturday Jul 2016

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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).

160723 damsel Beautiful Demoiselle female

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.

160723 damsel Beautiful Demoiselle male

Damsels or dragons?

30 Saturday Apr 2016

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One of the best things about writing this blog is that I’m constantly learning new things. When this gorgeous creature flitted across my path in Bute Park on Wednesday, I thought ‘Ooooo, my first dragonfly of the year!’ Wrong! This is a damselfly, a female of the very aptly named species Beautiful Demoiselle (Calopteryx Virgo).

damselfly Beautiful Demoiselle female (2)

So, I asked myself, ‘how do I tell the difference between a dragonfly and a damselfly?’ It seems there are four basic differences that even I should be able to spot:
1) Body shape: dragonflies are bulkier, shorter and thicker, whereas damselflies are slender and delicate.
2) Eyes: a dragonfly’s eyes are much larger, wrapping around from the side to the front of the head, often touching. The eyes of the damselfly are also big, but tend to be more to the side of the head, with a definite gap between.

Damselfly Beautiful Demoiselle female

3) Wing shape: the hind wings of the dragonfly are larger than the fore wings and broaden at the base, but the damselfly’s wings are both the same size and shape, and narrow markedly where they connect to the body.
4) Wing position: when resting, the dragonfly always spreads its wings, whereas the damselfly rests with its wings together above its body.

dragonfly brown hawker female

Above is a photo of a female Brown Hawker dragonfly (Aeshna grandis), taken last year, so you can see the differences. And, hopefully, my rather early Beautiful Demoiselle will just be the first of many of these heavenly creatures.