Some Great Finds in the Reeds!

With some nice sun forecast for this morning and 3 hours available to go out, I drove over to Marshside at 9.30am where the Willow Emerald Damselflies were seen earlier in the week. I had plenty of time this morning to check out the hedges and reeds along the dykes and really hoped that I could maybe find a Willow Emerald Damselfly exuviae. I don't know how many have actually been seen in this country but a look on the internet and reading books suggested that not many have been found and probably less photographed. With this in mind I spent quite a bit of time checking the waters edge and it wasn't very long until I started to see the first of 38 Willow Emerald Damselfly starting to climb up the reeds and fly across the road to the higher hedges. I checked out an an area where I saw one fly up and was very pleased to see a Willow Emerald Damselfly still clinging onto its exuviae. Stunning stuff and what a find. I spent the next few hours checking the edges and managed to find 8 Willow Emerald Damselfly exuviae and even one which I was able to photograph as it still held onto the exuviae.

'Teneral' Willow Emerald Damselfly (male) & Exuviae

I wonder how many of these shots have been photographed in the UK? I took a few more shots of a teneral male which posed nicely but really look forward to photographing some of the exuviae which I brought home. Again, I don't think too many of these have been photographed but I will look forward to capturing the finer details tomorrow if I can get an hour to take a few shots. I also noted 1 Ruddy Darter today and 4 Small Red eyed Damselfly along with a few Blue tailed Damselflies. A cracking session with a good number found. Hopefully this number can easily double in the next few weeks.

 'Teneral' Willow Emerald Damselfly (female)

'Teneral' Willow Emerald Damselfly (male)