First sightings

Expeditions for damselflies and dragonflies will be limited this season, at least for the next few weeks, but I got off to a good start yesterday.  Only 1 km north of here, as the dragon flies, is Northumberland Wildlife Trust's Weetslade Country Park where I have arranged to survey dragonflies for a second year.  The weather has been so good this week that I thought it was worth an early look yesterday to see what was about.  And as I had hoped, large red damselflies were on the wing.  The photo below shows the typical place to find them after emergence, in shrubs a few metres from the water, in sunshine and sheltered from the breeze.

This was the first one I saw, a teneral (freshly emerged) male.

All the others I photographed were female.  This is another teneral.

These are slightly older, with better developed colour but they still have pale eyes which will turn red as they mature.

My plan is to repeat this survey every couple of weeks for the Wildlife Trust.  It may be the only place I can look for dragonflies in the near future.  Next month should see the emergence of other damselflies, chasers and perhaps one or two other dragonflies.