Azure damselfly

[JamesT]

In the grass by my pond.

[Denis]

Lots around at the moment James!

[Clicker]

Such beautiful colours....Landing on a stem seems to be the only time I have ever captured an image and so hard to catch in flight .. very nice James .

[JamesT]

Thanks Dennis & Clicker.

26 minutes ago, Clicker said:

Landing on a stem seems to be the only time I have ever captured an image and so hard to catch in flight

True, I wanted to catch some of the pairs over the water, but there was no way I could frame & focus (also the Sun went behind the clouds and the females more or less vanished).

[Paul]

Nice - the damsels are wonderful to capture, but do like to give a chase!

Paul.

[johntwo]

Nice image.  What's the difference between an Azure Damselfly and the Common Blue, or are they the same thing?

[JamesT]

7 hours ago, johntwo said:

Nice image.  What's the difference between an Azure Damselfly and the Common Blue, or are they the same thing?

They are quite similar. In the male (as far as I can see) the main difference is the dark mark ringed below, which is absent in the common blue:

Also there is less blue in the females.

 

[johntwo]

Oh, in that case, I have images of both but I have been calling them all Common Blues.  Little knowledge and all that.

[JamesT]

On 22/06/2021 at 08:34, johntwo said:

Oh, in that case, I have images of both but I have been calling them all Common Blues.  Little knowledge and all that.

It is a tricky one, I had to pore over the images and ID marks on the Dragonflies & Damselflies website for quite a while before I was convinced as to which I had.