A walk round the pond - week 33

This week I get the feeling that the season is beginning to wind down.  It is cooler, fresher and breezier, not such good weather for insects in general.  We had rain last weekend and the ponds are a couple of inches deeper, but still well below normal.  Three species of damselfly are still on the wing - emerald,

common blue,

and blue-tailed.

It is interesting that some blue-tailed males still have "immature" colouring".

In each previous week I have posted photos from only that particular week but I have also been collecting photos to show the variation in colour of the blue-tailed damselflies.  Immature males have a greenish thorax and a blue "tail"

but mature males are blue at both ends.

Females come in five colour forms.  Violet immature females (violacea)

mature into a male-type colour (typica)

or a green and brown form (infuscans).

Orange/pink immature females (rufescens)

mature into a brown form (rufescens-obsoleta).

Here is a mature male with a rufescens-obsoleta female.

Here is an immature male with a typica female.

An immature male with a violacea female.

And a mature male with a violacea female.

This is the first week I have not seen an emperor dragonfly since they first appeared in week 23.  The common hawkers also failed to appear after a shorter season, seven weeks.  Several male migrant hawkers were flying and common and ruddy darters are still plentiful.

Here are some little creatures I have never seen before.  It took me quite a while to identify them and I posted the photo on iSpot to be sure.  These are green leaf-hoppers (Cicadella viridis).  The larger turquoise ones are females and the smaller blue ones are males.  There are over 20,000 species of leaf-hoppers in the world!

Butterflies this week included female green-veined white

and male common blue.

Lots af fruits and berries are ripening in the hedges so autumn can't be far away.