I haven’t seen any Azure Damselflies emerging from either of our ponds so far this year, but today while I was touring the homestead in search of inverts this mature male drifted past me and landed on the Viburnum juddii. Given a choice between a damsel and a dragon, I’ll take the dragon every time – out of fellow-feeling, some might say, though probably not to my face. But R, who’s a gentler person than me, adores damselflies – so this one is for him.
There’s something about way the the smaller damselflies move which seems not quite of this world – unless they perceive a threat, at which point they shift into overdrive, they potter about in a rather erratic, almost jerky fashion that always puts me in mind of puppetry. When you add in the fact that from a distance male Azures look a bit like those old non-eco cotton buds with blue plastic stems, you end up with a creature that might have been designed by Postgate and Firmin as a character in the Clangers.
I think I need to get out more.
R: C1 D4.
