A walk round the pond - Week 22

I went to the pond early yesterday morning.  It was mild and calm but grey and drizzly.  I was hoping I might find an emerging dragonfly and I soon found this.  I had arrived a few minutes too late as this damsel had just emerged from its larval skin.

As I watched it crawled to the top of the leaf to begin to expand its wings and abdomen.

I walked on and at 07:46 I found this damselfly nymph.  It was just beginning to split the skin on the back of the thorax.

I had time to change cameras to a macro lens with a flash.  (It wasn't dark but the flash makes the background very dark.)  This was at 07:49.

07:51.  A couple of minutes later the skin has split across the back of the head.

07:53.  The head and thorax have emerged.

07:55.  The legs and wings are free.

08:12.  The abdomen is almost out.

08:13.  The damselfly has emerged and steps to one side.  The blue colouration suggests this is an azure damselfly

08:26.  The wings have expanded nearly to the tip of the abdomen.

08:44.  The wings are now nearly fully expanded but the abdomen is still contracted.

As the next stage was going to take a while I went for a walk around the small pond and the surrounding hedges, hoping to see a dragonfly.  When I returned at 09:16 the damselfly's abdomen had extended but was caught under one of the legs of the exuvia and it was struggling to get free.

I carefully lifted off the exuvia but it was left with a kink in its abdomen.  The last photo I took was at 09:18 when it was getting breezy and very difficult to get a photo in focus as the leaf swayed in the wind.

On the way back I found another teneral azure damselfly,  perhaps the same one I saw at first, showing what it is supposed to look like.

This is the first time I have witnessed an emergence.  Next I want to see a dragonfly emerge (they do it slightly differently) and perhaps even use a tripod to get a time-lapse sequence or some video.

Also present yesterday were dozens of large red damselflies

a few blue-tailed damselflies,

and many, many common blue damselflies.

I also did the May bumblebee walk for the Bumblebee Conservation Trust this week.  I saw lots of bumblebees, mostly feeding on bird's-foot trefoil, of which there is plenty.

Most of the bees were red-tailed bumblebees (Bombus lapidarius), including this queen.

I also saw early bumblebee (Bombus pratorum), buff-tailed bumblebee (Bombus terrestris), common carder bee (Bombus pascuorum),

and heath bumblebee (Bombus jonellus).

Butterflies included green-veined whites, walls, the first common blues

and another dingy skipper.

So for the second week running I didn't see a dragonfly and I have still only seen one this year, a broad-bodied chaser.  I have been expecting four-spotted chasers which are now already three weeks later than last year.  I hope they will be out and about next week.