Another Emergence Captured

With a generally sunny day yesterday and feeling nice in the sheltered area of my garden pond, I was hopeful of another Large Red Damselfly emergence as the previous night had seen a few nymphs clinging to stems just above the water line. I went out quite early to check the pond where the nymphs were still in position and thankfully, one of them had moved higher up the stem and was obviously thinking about emerging. I have potted a few stems in pots which I can move if necessary from time to time to avoid cluttered shots and after the nymph had settled, I slowly moved one of the pots further along the shelf where I had a nice background. Out of the wind, it felt quite warm at times and with everything set up, it was a case of waiting for the action to happen. Every emergence is different with some nymphs going through the process of emerging quickly whilst others take an age to get going. This was a waiting game as it seemed to stay still for quite a while until at last, I could see the familiar movement of the abdomen where the pressure was built up to split the back of the thorax. Its at this stage as it starts to emerge that you hope that the nymph has made a good choice of emerging site and is gripped on well. I see a lot of emergences where as the damselfly starts to emerge, the exuviae moves or slips a little and in the worst scenario, the exuviae falls down all together causing certain death to the stuck damselfly. This emergence seemed to all go well and I was able to once again enjoy and marvel at what was unfolding in front of me. With the camera all set up low on a tripod, I was then able to take a good number of photos of the emergence. I never tire of this sight and photographing this is a real privilege. I went back a little later to see that another one had emerged and they were having brief flights around the pond and landing on the Grape Hyacinths which despite the low light levels, enabled me to take a few more shots. Last night, I went out in the dark with a torch and had a look around the bases of the stems and reeds in the pond and was pleased to see a Hairy Dragonfly nymph with its head and back of thorax out of the water. A sure sign that they will be emerging soon. Fingers crossed for some warmer evenings in the next week which should see the first ones emerging I expect.

 

Large Red Damselfly (Pyrrhosoma nymphula) - female emerging