Small Red-eyed Damselfly

During the week I received a photo of a damselfly from Chris Hindle taken at Chambers Wall, asking what i thought it was. It was a teneral male Small Red-eyed Damselfly.

So today (Saturday 9th July) I went over to the fisherman's car park with my camera to hunt for damselflies. I needn't have worried, there were loads of damselflies with red eyes sitting on the vegetation on the Wantsum. Although very windy, I took a walk along the riverbank, pausing at each swim to look for insects. I counted at least 70 Small Red-eyed Damselflies, around 20 Red-eyed Damselflies, and probably about 50 others best left unidentified. This is the first year Small Red-eyeds have been seen at this sight. The 2 species with red eyes aren't too hard to tell apart from each other with a reasonable view.

Small Red-eyed above, Red-eyed below.

Also seen today were Blue-tailed and Common Blue Damselflies, Emperor Dragonfly and Black-tailed Skimmer.