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Monday, May 31, 2010

Bursting out all over

How excited am I at the return of Springwatch!

I've even been doing a bit of Springwatching myself. I took these photos of damselflies at the edge of the lake at Aldenham Country Park on Sunday.

We noticed quite a few damselfly nymphs crawling out of the water whilst we were having our lunch and quite a few new emerged adults too, clinging to the concrete dam whilst waiting for their new wings to harden up.

Newly hatched damsel fly

There were also empty nymph skins just left lying where their former owners had crawled out of them.

Damsel fly nymph skin

And then I spotted this one guy with a little split across his back. I waited a few minutes and saw something absolutely miraculous.

Damsel fly emerging

You can't get anything more brand new than this and it's absolutely perfect, down to the tiny legs which have emerged from the legs of the nymph like fingers from a glove and just compare the milky eyes of this insect with the eyes of the slightly older damselfly above. Amazing.

4 comments:

Ruth said...

Those are amazing shots! You should send them in to the show, they might show them!

Kate said...

cor! great pics!

Lara said...

I always think of you when I watch springwatch. They are amazing pics....

Kyoko said...

Wow! what an amazing shot you managed to take. That is brilliant. I agree with Ruth, you should send your pics to the show. :D
x
Kyoko