Having posted my first male Banded Demoiselle of the season yesterday, it seems only fair that today I should feature the first female I’ve seen this year. Once again I’m indebted to the steamy clearing at the bottom of the cliff in Cleeve Prior – a Birmingham Anglers Association car park during the fishing season, but right now a haven for invertebrate life of all kinds, including half a dozen species of butterfly and, more pertinently to me, Banded Demoiselles, whose numbers there have gone up overnight from one to six. I spent a little while trying to spot my photographic model from yesterday, but in all honesty I couldn’t distinguish him from the other males. It’s entirely possible that when I arrived he thought whatever is the Odonata equivalent of “OMG – HER again!”, and took himself off into the woods for a bit of peace and quiet while I chased his relatives around the nettle beds.
In other news, my Encounter Nature notes remind me that this morning I also found the first damselfly of the year – a female Large Red – for the Community Orchard site in Cleeve Prior. Diligent scouring of the ponds there failed to elicit a Hairy Dragonfly, but did put up an unexpected Grey Heron from the Hairy Dragonfly area. I was so startled by this that I stood watching it and laughing, rather than remembering to use some of the equipment I was carrying to capture evidence of the event.
At the Heart of England Forest site on the Avon at Barton the Banded Demoiselle count had also risen sharply – from yesterday’s ten, to twenty two today. There was a further male Banded at the bridge over the feeder stream, along with a single Large Red Damselfly, but sadly no Beautiful Demoiselles as yet. Experience told me that at this stage I’d be more likely to find the Beautifuls in woodland, and I almost talked myself into a further walk around Dorothy’s Wood – but it was very hot by this time, I was feeling the need of lunch, and I had some shopping to do, so I left the wood for another day.
