Female Azure Damsel eating an insect Willow seeds float from the trees and seeds break free from dandelion clocks and drift over a sea of bracken lush and green after rain. Water trickles along the path and becks resound. Stitchwort flowers are fresh and white, bluebells fade amongst bracken, foxgloves and thistles are budding. Guelder rose and rowan have creamy-white flowers and apple blossom fades. The wood is all sunlight and shadow and everywhere is verdant. Pale seeds and white butterflies wing through the air, whites and orange-tips. Dark insects are on the wing, damsels and demoiselles.
Above the green bracken there's a weave of wavering flights. Willow seeds with parachutes of tufted hairs float wherever the breeze might take them. White butterflies, damsels and demoiselles interweave in flight-patterns we would come to recognise, if we lingered and lingered and learnt them, refreshed them each spring as I do with birdsong. Field-craft is born of dedication. The scene might look languid and leisurely but that's illusory. We return by the same track so we stop for a reprise and, for a while, all is quiet. Then we begin to spy dark demoiselles that settle on bracken crosiers. The fell-side falls away, over a sea of bracken, through a woodland fringe and down to a tarn. Few would choose to wade through thick bracken, so the insects have a habitat all to themselves. There's something magical about all this, glimpses of pale butterflies against deep shadow created by a woodland fringe.
It's perfect weather for insects, warm and bright with blue sky and defined white cumulous. The landscape resounds with flowing water and all along our way there are blue flowers of Veronica beccabunga, Brooklime, in water-tracks. Bracken grows rank after so much rain and beneath its tall stems there's a mulch of last summer's growth, a hot-bed for butterfly eggs and insect larvae. An idyllic interlude with butterflies, damsels and demoiselles in a peaceful place
Back home, I spend a rainy day editing images (plenty of rainy days this year). I discover detail that we could not see in the field and make decisions on what I hope to show, the wider context and the habitat, or insect detail. I remind myself about dragonflies and damsels, how to identify them, and their life cycle. I discover an excellent Woodland Trust website, link below
Woodland Trust
https://www.woodlandtrust.org.uk/blog/2018/07/british-dragonflies
Looking back on our interlude, perception shifts. Our hour of watching is peaceful and we're wholly focused on following flight, hoping insects will settle so we can see them clearly. Editing images, I find a damsel that has caught a green-veined white in mid-air and has settled on a bracken frond to consume its prey. These beautiful insects are hunting, feeding, seeking mates. There's an urgency in the air. And on this bright and sunny bank holiday Saturday we're aware that there's rain in the forecast for the next few days.
Back home, I spend a rainy day editing images (plenty of rainy days this year). I discover detail that we could not see in the field and make decisions on what I hope to show, the wider context and the habitat, or insect detail. I remind myself about dragonflies and damsels, how to identify them, and their life cycle. I discover an excellent Woodland Trust website, link below
Woodland Trust
https://www.woodlandtrust.org.uk/blog/2018/07/british-dragonflies
Looking back on our interlude, perception shifts. Our hour of watching is peaceful and we're wholly focused on following flight, hoping insects will settle so we can see them clearly. Editing images, I find a damsel that has caught a green-veined white in mid-air and has settled on a bracken frond to consume its prey. These beautiful insects are hunting, feeding, seeking mates. There's an urgency in the air. And on this bright and sunny bank holiday Saturday we're aware that there's rain in the forecast for the next few days.
Damsels settle with wings closed. The larger, darker Beautiful demoiselles have brownish wings and large eyes. They're dimorphic, with male and female having distinct forms. The male Beautiful demoiselle has a head and body of iridescent blue and there's a hint of a blue line through veined wings. A female Beautiful demoiselle has brown wings with head and abdomen of iridescent green.
Damsels and dragonflies catch their prey in flight. That green-veined white would find itself clasped by the hairs on damsel legs and landed on bracken to be eaten. Close-focus images show damsels have huge eyes, with excellent vision. And their legs are covered in fine hairs, a fine hook clasping onto a frond.
Damsels and dragonflies catch their prey in flight. That green-veined white would find itself clasped by the hairs on damsel legs and landed on bracken to be eaten. Close-focus images show damsels have huge eyes, with excellent vision. And their legs are covered in fine hairs, a fine hook clasping onto a frond.
My thanks to Jeff Holmes for definitive ID and comments on the Azure Damsel and Beautiful Demoiselle. He notes that wing-colour is different between the female and male Beautiful Demoiselles. The Beautiful Demoiselle is found 'mainly in running small streams often upland with a clean gravel bottom.' On the Somerset Levels dragonflies are out in large numbers 'to the delight of Hobbies.' Butterflies have been present only in small numbers, so far.
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