Sunday 15 June 2014

Blue-tailed Damselfly

The blue-tailed damselfly (Ischnura elegans) is one of the commonest species.  This is the male with two-toned diamond-shaped spots on his wings and a blue tail.



The female comes in five colour forms.  This is the immature violacea.


She matures to either the male-type colouration (typica)


or an olive green / brown (infuscans).


The other immature female form is rufescens


which matures to the rufescens-obseleta form.


Most of the damselflies I saw today were females, which was good news for the males.  This is a male in tandem with a typica female.


This male is in a wheel with a rufescens-obseleta female


and this one with an infuscans female.


All these photographs were taken within an hour in a 20m stretch of one bank of one small pond.  Amazing.

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