After Work at Westbere

With the sun shining after work I drove down to Westbere Lakes to see if any dragonflies were to be seen. I had only just gone inside the entrance where there is a nice warm sun trap when I saw a small damselfly on the wing. Focusing with the camera I could see it was a Variable Damselfly my first of the year and a look in the general area in the next 30 minutes or so produced c15 Variable Damselflies. I find these quite tricky to id when they first emerge but a few obvious features were noted when I set about getting some shots with the macro lens. I was concerned that I would not get near enough as these damselflies can be very hard to approach but with a bit of patience I was able to get a number of shots from a nice range.

Variable Damselfly

Also on the wing were c10 Blue tailed Damselflies, also my first sighting of this species this year although I'm sure there are probably a lot more on the wing as I only looked in a small area. As well as a few obvious males I also saw a few females of the form rufescens. Again a few shots were taken with a few not turning out too bad at all.

Female Blue tailed Damselfly 

Female Blue tailed Damselfly (form rufescens)

A quick walk on produced c7 Large Red Damselflies and 1 Hairy Dragonfly was resting in the sun. A brief but rewarding session and nice to add a couple of species for the year.