There are now so many Banded Demoiselles at the old wharf at Cleeve Prior Mill that they’ve had to spread themselves out around the entire site. Some of the males are now fully mature and looking to breed, so they’ve moved to the river edge and are patrolling the reeds and lily pads in the hope of finding a flirty female. Others are having a high old time, flying low over the surface of the water and plucking mayfly duns out of the air as they emerge from the river, then bringing them back to land to eat them. Even after their final transformation into spinners, mayflies can’t really compete with the flying skills of a large damselfly, and the duns are weak flyers – slow and fluttery – so the contest is a very uneven one. But the Demoiselles aren’t doing this for sport, of course.
This particular engagement was hard to watch – the mayfly wasn’t so much struggling as trembling, in repeated waves of frantic vibration, while the Demoiselle simply perched, held on, and waited for his meal to stop moving. It’s a brutal fact of nature that among the carnivores, for something to eat something else has to die, but while I fully accept this, it doesn’t mean that I celebrate it.
R: L2, C9, D10.
