Featherlegs

At round 3.5cm long, the White-legged Damselfly is one of the UK's largest damselflies. It's also not readily mistaken for any other species: the pale, feathery legs with expanded tibiae, the paired thoracic stripes, the chestnut wing spots and the broad head are all unique. Both sexes are cream and brown when they first emerge, but mature males are pale blue and black (often somewhat aqua on the thorax, as here), and the coloured markings of mature females are a pale yellowish green.

The White-legged Damselfly has a limited distribution in this country, though it can turn up in large numbers at suitable sites. It's found mainly in south-east England and the Midlands, along clean, slow-moving rivers and canals with abundant floating and bankside vegetation. It's rare to find it north of a line drawn between the Mersey and The Wash, and in Wales it's confined to the eastern counties. The species is susceptible to pollution, and especially to wholesale clearance of bankside vegetation, so it can disappear quite suddenly from a site where it was previously well established, but equally it can suddenly appear at new locations that suit it better. In recent years it has begun to colonise clean and well vegetated lakes.

As well as its unusual appearance and rather pernickety habits, the White-legged Damselfly is notable for being the only non-demoiselle damsel we have that engages in a courtship display. A receptive female initiates mating by performing a particular kind of jerky, bouncing flight in front of a male, who responds with a similar flight, during which he shows off his white legs. He then grasps the female and they fly to nearby vegetation, where he bends her around and strokes the end of her abdomen with his hairy legs, to persuade her to form the mating wheel. I've seen this happen a few times -  it can go on for several minutes, and it looks like pretty hard work - and at this juncture the female always looks so uninterested that I'm never sure if she will ultimately consent or not. The best film I could find on line of White-legged Damselflies in cop was this one, which also shows that once the mating wheel is formed, the male continues to reach down and stroke the female's abdomen from time to time during copulation. Afterwards, as with most other damselflies, the pair remains in tandem while the female lays her eggs in floating or emergent vegetation.