I’ve been holding off sharing images of this beautiful creature, hoping that I might spot a male and so be able to share both sexes. But as that hasn’t yet happened …

This, I am reliably informed by dragonfly experts, is an older female Red-veined darter (Sympetrum fonscolombii) – the fact that she’s older can be determined by the reddish colouring along the top of her torso. Though the photo above was taken on 8 July and the photo below on 20 July, I think these may well be the same female, as the location was almost exactly the same, and I’ve seen no others in that general area. You can read more about her, and see images of the stunning red males, on the British Dragonflies website.