Monday, 23 May 2011

Odonata (5): Beautiful Demoiselles and other Damselflies, Llandeilo

The weather was unpromising, but we had a few patches here and there of watery sunshine. There were far fewer Damselflies about than on our previous visit, but this may have been due to the blustery conditions.

We recalled seeing a Beautiful Demoiselle on the nettles a year ago, and wondered whether one might appear. We did not have to wait long before a male caught our eye, with his iridescent wings  ...

Beautiful Demoiselle (male) Calopteryx virgo


I failed to catch a photo with the wings outstretched ...


Just as we were preparing to head back to the car, our eyes alighted on this magnificent, shiny creature ... a female Beautiful Demoiselle. She flitted between the Rhododendron and the fronds of bracken.
 



This male Blue-tailed Damselfly perched on some new woodwork.

The Stinging Nettles were alive with Green Nettle Weevils (Phyllobius viridiaeris).

The Cardinal Beetle preferred the Hawthorn. 

I found an interesting post about the Cardinal Beetle here; and although this one was seen in Wales, it is of the red-headed variety. 
  • Previous Beautiful Demoiselle post (and bit on iridescence), showing that I saw my first one last year on 12 June 2010.
  • You can see David's Demoiselle photos (May 2011) here (male, wings outstretched) and here (female), at his Swansea Bay View blog.
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4 comments:

  1. Randy Emmitt24 May 2011 at 01:14

    Caroline,
    Can't post too many of the jewelwing damselwing, some really nice shot. Our Ebony Jewelwings would never let you get more than a shot every once in a while.

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  2. J24 May 2011 at 01:16

    Beautiful shots of the Beautiful Demoiselle, Caroline. I was up in Llandeilo on Saturday, watching black and white stripey things!

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  3. J25 May 2011 at 18:06

    Caroline, not sure if the badgers I photographed are young ones or not (my knowledge of badgers is little to none!) According to what I've (just) read, young badgers usually have their full adult coat before leaving the sett, so the differences in fur colour seen in these pictures could just be down to individual variation - or, more probably, photographer error!
    (I'm posting this here because I can't seem to make comments on my own blog at the moment.)

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  4. Mary26 May 2011 at 16:38

    I love those shiny jewelwings! So pretty!

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