Wednesday 19 June 2019

Wandering down to East Lock


As I got down to the Environment Agency's "Wildflower sowing patch" by East Lock the area looked to be better for damselflies than the whole of the rest of the walk so far.

The first one identified was the blue homochrome form of the Azure Damselfly, Coenagrion puella, with this one having a moderate amount of blue on its abdomen. This could be compared with a darker variant that I have also seen. The thorax is still green. Less than 10% of the females are reputed to be the blue "homochrome" form, while over 90% are supposed to be the typical female "heterochrome" form (no reference).


I was pleased to see the White-legged Damselflies, Platycnemis pennipes, here as I don't recall them from previous years. Here is an immature female, known as the "lactea" phase. Note the buffy pterostigmas. The second photo might be of a different animal, I'm not sure.



and here is the male,


No comments:

Post a Comment