Beautiful

This afternoon I made my third trip of the week to the short stretch of the River Avon that runs through the Heart of England Forest at Barton, and spotted my first few Beautiful Demoiselles of the season. They were hugely outnumbered by the Banded Demoiselles, of which there were at least a hundred out and about on the nettle beds, but I'd been starting to wonder if any Beautiful Demoiselles would emerge here at all this year, so I was very happy to find some.

It's lucky that insects generally don't read books or there probably wouldn't be any Beautiful Demoiselles here at all, because they're alleged to prefer clean, fast-flowing, sandy- or pebbly-bottomed streams, and this site has nothing remotely resembling that. Instead they seem to breed in a muddy feeder stream, about four hundred metres away from its outflow into the Avon, while the Banded Demoiselles breed in the river itself. Once emerged the two species still tend to favour their own habitats, though I did spot a couple of Beautiful Demoiselles on the river bank today, and one Banded Demoiselle on the emergent vegetation of the stream.

In other news, at least four damselflies emerged successfully from our patio pond this morning, though I only actually witnessed the final Large Red making her maiden flight - all the others had left by the time I went to check the pond, leaving their exuviae behind as evidence.