The heatwave has abated, at least temporarily – mitigated by a strong, gusty wind from the north-east. So this morning R and I decided to risk a walk around Croome. Because of the palaver that always seems to happen between deciding to go out and actually leaving the house, we didn’t arrive until about 11.30, by which time the temperature had come up a long way from the delicious 15°C of breakfast time, but the wind kept things tolerable. It also kept trying to remove my hat, but I managed to successfully juggle hat and camera, and avoided losing either.
We were half way round our usual clockwise circuit of the lake, and cutting through a section of shrubbery on the west side of it, when I spotted this damselfly, clinging to a twig that was hanging above the path a couple of metres in front of us. “STOP!” I said, and as R’s stride faltered I grabbed his arm and hauled him backwards. “I think,” I said, with no hint of contrition whatsoever, “that it might be a Willow Emerald. Or is it? I think so…” – edging sideways and forwards to try to get a view of the side of the thorax. “Yes it is. Or… maybe not. Is it just a Common Emerald…? Wait…” – a wholly redundant instruction, given that R had now also seen the large insect hanging right in front of his face, and being a man who loves a graceful damselfly was standing staring at it in rapt fascination.
Eventually I achieved the angle I needed, got a shot of the thoracic markings, chimped at the image in-camera, and did a little jig. “YES!! First of the year!” The Willow Emerald – presumably bored by now – took off, did a little loop, caught a small fly, and returned to the twig. I took some more photos with a lot of lens, while R tried and failed to capture her on his phone. Some other people walked along the path and put her to flight, but again she just circled and came back down on the same twig. She really was a lovely model, and I was so caught up in the photo opportunities she was giving me, that it was only as we were preparing to walk away that I spotted the two other female Willow Emeralds hanging around the same area of shrubbery, no more than a metre away from this one.
On the one hand: Aaaarrrggghhh!! Willow Emeralds are a late season species – round here there’s only the Migrant Hawker left to emerge – so it feels as though the season is galloping past.
But on the other hand: Yay!! It’s a Willow Emerald Damselfly, and I think she’s absolutely beautiful.
R: L2, C10, D52.
