Monday 29 July 2013

Old Red-Eyes Is Back - The Beautiful South

With precious little in the Moth Trap again this morning, maybe more accurately just 10 Insects may qualify as 'nothing', it was decided to return to the Fishing Lakes at the north of the farm that were visited  yesterday.
SILVER Y
is probably the most common and widespread Migrant Moth.
 During that first visit these two photographs were taken
 and while certainly Damselflies with 'red-eyes'
the distance from the observer and the poor quality
shots precluded a positive identification.
 In addition and a little closer to hand were
POND SKATES
 AZURE DAMSELFLY and
 BLACK-TAILED SKIMMER
 However, today I didn't get as far as the northern lakes
as diverted by this
SKIPPER BUTTERFLY
 and then these Insects in the smaller of the 2 ponds close to the
farm house. A closer encounter allowed for better photos and an
opportunity to identify them as the moderately rare
SMALL RED-EYED DAMSELFLY
This pond is certainly offering up some good records of which we will endeavour to get more.
While I was confident enough of this it was thought best to consult with others who readily agreed. My thanks to Sheila and Paul. An extract from Wikipedia:- The species is a small damselfly, about 29 millimetres (1.1 in) long, predominantly black with iridescent blue markings. Its large, spaced eyes are a deep red. Like the Red-eyed Damselfly, both sexes lack pale spots behind the eyes and have pale brown pterostigmata. The male has a bronze-black top and blue sides. The sides of the female's thorax are yellow, green or blue. The rear edge of the pronotum is rounded. Viewed from the side, the second and eighth segment of the abdomen of the male are mostly blue, which distinguishes it from the Red-eyed Damselfly where these are mostly black. Further reading via the link
WATER LILY

Entry              Pageviews
United Kingdom
                   963
United States
                   351
Russia
                   102
Germany
                     28
Canada
                     22
Estonia
                     22
China
                     16
France
                     16
Australia
                     10
Poland
                       8