In spite of the poor weather, I’ve had a wonderful bug season, especially damselflies. I consider myself lucky that our local country park has perhaps more of them than any other reserve in the south-east. On a good day in June and early July, you can walk through the long meadow grass and watch as they scatter by the dozen, like little shards of coloured glass. At times like that, I don’t think I could be any happier.
They can be tricky to photograph, but not impossible and if I get lucky, I come across an individual that is prepared to stick around for a lengthy photo-shoot. The longest so far has been around 45 minutes, while I fitted an extension tube to get an extreme close-up of the eyes. I love it when you can form a relationship with a bug.
Demoiselles are perhaps the most flighty, but I found a solution by visiting well before sunrise and capturing them covered in dew.
Recently, I have found a wonderful reserve for rare willow emerald damselflies. I love nothing more than the opportunity to spend a few hours with them and now after two visits, I have a lot of images to process.
Back to the blue-tailed damselflies though. At some point, I will write a blog post about all the different colour variations. I only became aware of this last year and so far, I’ve been fortunate enough to photograph several. This time I want to share some images of them having lunch. Of all the species I see on a regular basis, it’s always these that I find snacking on some poor insect. The photograph featured above was taken this year. The two below were taken back in 2019.
Steve Cullum
29 Aug 2021More fab shots and a good read 🙂
Zooey
30 Aug 2021Thank you, Steve 🙂
Sid
30 Aug 2021So delicate, so fairy ❤️
Awesome photos!
Ciao
Sid
Zooey
30 Aug 2021They are a bit like fairies. Thank you, Sid 🙂