Well after a very slow start it seems things are taking off with 5 more species on the wing! Starting yesterday Jim Almond visited a private site near Shrewsbury and saw a good number of Variable Damselflies. Pictured close up you can see the head of the female with the characteristic pale bar between the eye spots and the distinctive shaped trailing edge of the pronotum. This is the head of a female dark form pictured in full below, and next to the female blue form. The male is pictured below these with text book exclamation marks for antehumeral stripes on top of the thorax- though be careful as these can often be continual stripes!
An immature male Red-eyed Damselfly is pictured beautifully on the yellow flower and below this a male and female Blue-tailed Damselfly. The female (right) is known as form rufescens and is one of 5 possible colour forms!
Elsewhere on the 11th Dan Wrench saw the first Beautiful Demoiselle on the Rea Brook in Shrewsbury and then today (12th) Jan Shields has recorded the first Common Clubtails on the River Severn at Frankwell, Shrewsbury. These were both males and are pictured at the end of this post showing the clearly separated eyes that help identify this dragonfly.
