This is a sighting made by Lauren Ollie Waldron in April 2020 which has only recently come to my attention…so I’m posting it 16 moths late (!) because it’s still worth sharing. Lauren spotted a few damselflies in her flat in Shrewsbury and despite looking like very early Blue-tailed Damselflies they were in fact an exotic species called Marsh Bluetail Ischnura senegalensis. Correctly identified by Adrian Parr (the British Dragonfly Society Migrants officer) this is a species from SE Asia known to occasionally turn up in imported water weeds for fish tanks…and sure enough Lauren had recently set up her own tropical tank. Identifying features to split this species from our native Blue-tailed Damselfly are no blue coloration at all on segment 7 of the abdomen (blue ‘bleeds’ into the side/underside of segment 7 in Blue-tailed) and a striking black ‘saddle marking’ on top of segment 2 (where our Blue-tailed has a simple dark upper surface).
A fascinating find and always nice to know there’s something exotic in Shrewsbury!