I don’t normally post photos taken beyond our Shropshire borders, but I had to post these. Any Warr has been enjoying a population of around a 1000 (!) Scarce Blue-tailed Damselflies at a working sandpit at Ryall Court in Worcestershire. With so many damselflies Andy has been able to take some truly stunning photos of individuals at various life stages and the female of this species really steals the show. This sequence shows how the colors change from washed out immediately after emergence to the most striking bright orange and then to a drab over mature state often covered in fine sediment after egg laying as seen here in the final picture.
My other excuse for posting these is that we haven’t seen one in Shropshire since 2016, but we do see them at this time of year. The male is very similar to the common Blue-tailed Damselfly but the ‘blue-tail’ is positioned further down the abdomen. Often spotted at current or historic quarry sites and shallow, sparsely vegetated often ephemeral bodies of water..even wheel ruts!
