Simply Red

red-letter day

noun [ C usually singular ]

/ˌredˈlet.ə ˌdeɪ/US

a special, happy, and important day that you will always remember:

Well I have certainly had a few of these in June.  Having managed to photograph three new species of dragon/damselflies so far I was greedy for more.  For my next target I had to visit a site forty miles away.  I’d had one trip with no luck but was only wearing my hiking boots.  This fen was very wet so I returned with my wellies (rubber boots), now I could really get amongst it!

Small Red Damselfly (Ceriagrion tenellum) male.  Scarning Fen, Norfolk

And there we have it, the Small Red Damselfly, I hope you are impressed.  Put into context this is probably East Anglia’s rarest odonata.  It only occurs at the one site, the nearest colonies are in the most south, south/west counties or west Wales!  In these areas it is at it’s most northern range in Europe.  The Small Red is typically found in acidic pools on heath and bog, hence the need for the rubber boots!

The lady of the species comes in three colour forms, this is intermedia with a red and black abdomen

I carefully and slowly squelched my way through the bog keeping my eyes peeled for any movement, the smell not the most pleasant.  In recent years these damselflies have been in very low numbers and fears are that the colony may die out.  Suddenly a weak fluttering ahead, careful approach, not this time, it was a Large Red one of our commonest damsels.  Then another, a quick record shot, zoom in on the back of camera and YES!  Red legs, all red body this was my target.  It moved around low in the luxuriant plant growth, teasing me, and then it alighted on a lone reed stem as if to say “I give up, go on take your photos and leave me alone”.  And that’s what I did and I couldn’t ask for a nicer set of shots.  In all I found at least four Small Reds including a female.  Another red-letter day.

Large Red Damselflies (Pyrrhosoma nymphula) gave several false alarms. They are not that much bigger than the Small Red but have all black legs and the males have black on the abdomen. When dealing with creatures only just over an inch (30mm) long not easy to see with my dodgy eyesight!  This is a mating pair (the male above) forming a wheel, or heart for the romantics

Keeping to the red theme.  Butterflies have been very thin on the ground recently. The changeable weather has not helped but when the sun has shone good numbers of Red Admirals (Vanessa atalanta) have been in the garden and their flower of choice?  Red Valerian (Centranthus ruber).