I Can 'Scarcely' Believe It!

After cycling home yesterday at 5.30am I arrived home and saw the family briefly before they ventured out for 2 hours of karate. As the sun was still shining I took the opportunity to cycle c10 minutes to a site south of Reculver where I found yesterdays Southern Emerald Damselfly, the aim being to try to find it again and get some shots in the sunshine. I soon arrived in the area and soon found hundreds of Common Blue Damselflies along with c30 Emerald Damselflies and a few Common Darter. I couldn't refind the Southern Emerald Damselfly but as I looked I noticed a chunky female Emerald Damselfly fly up from the grass and land again. My first impression was how chunky the abdomen looked and thought about it being a Scarce Emerald Damselfly, another real Kent Mega in these parts of East Kent. As i got into a better position I took a number of photos and looked for a few distinguishing features. I remembered that one of them had tear drop marks on segment 1 and one had square marks but I couldn't remember which one. I also recalled that Emerald Damselfly had a single spot on the side of the thorax but this individual did not. Alarm bells started to ring as I started to think I had found a another Mega damselfly, that would be 2 in 2 days, surely not. I made sure I had a number of images that I could take back and look at and made my way back home. Having looked at a few books and photos on the Internet I am in no doubt now that what I found was indeed a female SCARCE EMERALD DAMSELFLY, my luck seems to be working well of late! Again this is a nationally rare damselfly in Britain. A few notable features that an be seen are the 2 squares on segment 1, long ovipositor reaching just past segment 10, chunky abdomen and very thin incomplete antehumeral stripes. Its been a great few days and who knows what else is out there. Are they just under recorded or are they just slowly spreading and where did this one breed, local? Its definitely been a very good education into a few tricky species to separate but one that has proven worthwhile, and a few bonus photos too. 

Female Scarce Emerald Damselfly