Large Red Damselfly (Pyrrhosoma nymphula) Emerges

April is an exciting time for the odonata enthusiast as the first Large Red Damselflies emerge after the long winter period has passed. I always eagerly anticipate seeing the first and during the past week, I have made a few visits to my garden pond during the evening to see whether they have been moving into the shallows and spending time at the surface. On a few still nights, it was pleasing to see a few on top of the weed where they were no doubt changing their breathing from water to air. With a warm day yesterday (Friday), I returned home after work where I then went out into the garden to see what was going on and was very pleased when checking the vegetation to see a pristine male Large Red Damselfly soaking up the last few bits of sun in the garden. I spent a few minutes just making the most of the moment and enjoying my first sighting of the season before returning indoors for the camera where I then spent some time taking a few photos which I shall post in due coarse. I returned last night to the pond where I found a couple of nymphs on the weed and one in particular was clinging to a stem partially out of the water. I had a feeling that this one was possibly going to try to emerge during the early hours or during the next morning so with this in mind, I was up quite early this morning and went to check the pond. The nymph was still on the stem and even further out of the water. I spent the next couple of hours checking before at last, as I made another visit to the pond, the nymph had moved up the stem and was clearly thinking about emerging. I got all the equipment together and stayed back and watched through binoculars as to not disturb the nymph during these crucial times. Eventually after a short while, the nymph seemed to have settled and I was able to move in slowly and set up. This consisted of me laying on my belly at the pond and resting the camera on a beanbag. I was then able to slowly slide the pot with the stem in to a better less cluttered position and... waited. The minutes past until I at last saw some movement as the thorax started to split and the photography began. Although there was some early nice light, it was quite a challenge to get the shots I wanted and to add to this, as the damselfly emerged, the exuviae moved creating more challenges to get the shots in focus. Nonetheless, I stayed with the task and thankfully, the emergence all went well and I had my first emergence set of the season and was very pleased indeed. Hopefully the next week or so will provide a few more chances to photograph this species and I'm sure it won't be long until I start to see the first Hairy Dragonfly nymphs up at the surface starting their breathing change over. A very pleasant few hours spent indeed enjoying this marvel of nature.

 

Large Red Damselfly (Pyrrhosoma nymphula) - teneral female