Banded Agrion

Of the wildlife in the UK, the Banded Argrion, Calopteryx splendens, is high up in my top ten list.
They gather, often in large groups, the males dancing like fairies along the banks of canals and slow flowing rivers. They aren't fond of still ponds and can't deal with fast flowing tracts of rivers either.

With green bodies and colourless wings, bar a little white tip, the females aren't as nearly as obvious. Although the males danced in their hundreds, I saw surprisingly few along the Wey Canal this morning. They were probably busy, on floating and sometimes submerged vegetation where they're happy to lay their eggs for 45 minutes at a time, at the rate of 10 eggs per minute!

The eggs take about two weeks to hatch, then for a full two years the larvae will be voracious hunters of muddy waters, before they climb a reed or grass, shed their skin and become another generation of these fairy like adults.

The banks of the canal were in full flower and the odour of water mint filled the air. I must go back for a blip of the view as it is now, and before the canal boats all get bedded away. There is a definite hint that the summer we haven't had is coming to an end.