Willow Emerald Damselflies Emerge

As mentioned in yesterday post, I made a visit mid morning to the stream at Marshside where the Willow Emerald Damselfly can be seen. I had made a few visits in the past week or so to search for them without success so it was very rewarding to find 7 teneral Willow Emerald Damselfly, most having just emerged I suspect that morning and making their maiden flights. It was interesting that 6 of them were female and only 1 male were noted as I thought the males would emerge slightly earlier? As most were resting up preparing to fly off to the hedges on the other side of the road, this made photography a little bit easier and I was able to get a number of pleasing images of them. I just love the freshness of the wings and the rainbow effect that can sometimes be seen as the light catches the wings. They can be a tricky subject to photograph I find, trying to get the whole damselfly in focus with such a long abdomen can be a challenge at times. Most of them moved off to the tall hedges where they will mature up which gave me a chance to look in the reeds where I saw them come from and was pleased to find 2 Willow Emerald exuviae which I carefully removed for some photos at home. Hopefully the next few weeks will see a good emergence of them here and in other local sites around the area and no doubt, I will be paying visits every now and then to monitor their numbers and to improve on the photos. 

Teneral female Willow Emerald Damselfly

With some time on my hands this morning, I spent a while going through some more of yesterdays dewy Banded Demoiselle shots and found a few more pleasing efforts.

'Dewy' male Banded Demoiselle

Still unfinished business I think with these and i'm sure I can make some slight improvements on them but for a first attempt with them, I must say, I am pretty pleased. With some nice warm weather predicted for the week ahead, maybe a visit after work during the week to see whats about on the odonata front.