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.
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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!)
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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.
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