Blue

"Common Blue is very blue" goes the mantra - except, that is, when it's an immature female like this one. Mature females don't have to be blue either - some are, but others are a drab green, darkening to brown as they age. For what it's worth, it looks to me as if this one is turning blue rather than green, but she'll never get the broad blue band across the upper surface of her 8th and 9th abdominal segments which distinguishes male Common Blues. It's the fact that this band is a deeper colour than its other blue markings, and much stronger than the equivalent band in males of the other 'blue' species, that gives rise to the mantra.

Other diagnostic features that point to this being a female Common Blue are the fact that her coloured shoulder stripe is broader than the black stripe below it, and the shapes of the black markings along the upper surface of her abdomen. If I'd been able to get a side-on shot, the clincher would have been the small spine on the under surface of her 8th abdominal segment, which no other female damselfly possesses - but she was antsy enough about my attentions as it was, and the moment I began to sink into a crouch beside her, she lost her nerve completely and flew away.

This wasn't the first Common Blue I'd photographed this season, but she was the first I'd yet spotted in the Shire. I'd taken a trip to Severn Stoke in the hope of finding some emergent Common Clubtails, but an hour's diligent searching of the bankside vegetation didn't produce any dragonflies at all. There were a good number of both Banded and Beautiful Demoiselles, but many of them were as immature as this Common Blue Damselfly, and I have a feeling that the season at Severn Stoke is still only just getting into its stride. Happily, I also spotted another Worcestershire Odonutter, with whom I should already have been acquainted given that we'd been on at least two organised dragon hunts together, but neither of us recognised the other until we exchanged names. We then had a pleasant chat, during which he gave me the most valuable piece of site advice I've had this year; I wish I could tell you what it was, but if I did, I'd have to kill you.