Southern Delights

After the success of finding a Scarce Emerald Damselfly at a private site near Reculver, I returned on quite a few occasions and early July whilst looking through the Damselflies I flushed a quite large damselfly and immediately thought this was something different. One of the first things I noticed on this individual was the bi-coloured pterostigma, a key feature of the Southern Emerald Damselfly. I had only seen this species once before at Cliffe Marshes which is about 40 miles away so was stunned that I had found this nationally rare damselfly near my home, in the presence also of the Scarce Emerald Damselfly. This is the gold medal of the damselfly world in my opinion and it would be nice to think that both the Southern and Scarce Emerald Damselfly are slowly going to spread in the county, i'm sure there must be plenty of unwatched habitat around Kent. Thankfully during my visits, the camera was called into action and I was able to get a number of satisfying images of the Southern. Fingers crossed for their return next year where once again I will hopefully spend many hours in the field studying and taking photographs of these fascinating insects.

Southern Emerald Damselfly