Sunday in the Meadows

The metallic blue/green of this Common Malachite - Malachius bipustulatus - caught my eye yesterday, as we walked through the local meadows.  I read here at 'Bugs and Weeds', that the small buff projections at the base of it's antennae indicate a male.

We crossed the river over a little wooden bridge, and stumbled into a damselfly wonderland.  This female Azure looked like it was about to tuck into dinner.

While a male Azure warmed in the sun.  Apparently there are 5 common types of blue damselfly and it's hard to tell them apart.  A lot depends on the marking on segment 2 (in the male Azure it is a U shape) and how much blue is on segment 8 and 9.

Many thanks, again, to the folks at WAB.

No Flies On Me

So, I was sitting on my heels, focused on the bell flower of a Comfrey, determined to get a good bee photo (bees love comfrey), when this beautiful Large Red Damselfly flew by.  Bee forgotten, I kept my eager eye on the flash of red, careful not to move suddenly and corkscrewing myself in the process.  She settled obligingly a few feet behind me, so I slowly unwound and took a shot.  

 I'm pretty confident that this is a young female.  The antehumeral stripes on the thorax are yellow in immatures (red in matures), and the abdomen differs between sexes; with the female having thicker black bands and a narrow yellow ring between each segment and a thin black line down the back.

Later in the day this hoverfly crossed my path, and I was delighted to get a shot for my hoverfly collection (of 2 now!)  

 Thanks to Geoff F at WAB who identified it as Xanthogramma  pedissequum.  According to Wikipedia, this is an 'uncommon European species', which has made me a bit smug, although looking at NBN Gateway's grid map, you can see it's not that uncommon in the south.