Delightful Demoiselles!

After dinner tonight I called into Westbere Lakes as it was still sunny and quite warm still. Although a little windy I was hopeful that a few dragonflies would be in the sheltered areas and this proved the case. I walked up to the river and along the bank a few hundred yards towards Fordwich and back and noted hundreds of Variable Damselfly, a few Azure Damselfly although they are low in numbers at the moment, 7 Large Red Damselflies and good numbers of Blue tailed and Red Eyed Damselfly. It was pleasing to see 10+ Hairy Dragonfly with a pair seem mating again but they soon flew off over the reeds. Along the river I saw 7 Banded Demoiselles, my first of the year and also witnessed 1 male being taken by a Hairy Dragonfly as it flew up into the air. The males are stunning and are one of my favourite species to watch and photograph but they proved a challenge today and were very wary. With a bit of stalking I was able to get a number of photos of  males and females.

Male Banded Demoiselle

The colour on the males is quite incredible when they turn to the sun and is hard to capture in the photos, a mission I will continue to work on in the next few weeks hopefully. I made my way back to the entrance where I spent some time photographing Large Red Damselflies now they have matured and will post these in the next few days. The weather does not look that good for a few days so I may have to wait until the weekend until the next session but with plenty of photos to get through, that at least gives me time to catch up!

Female Banded Demoiselle