I had seen reports from a local odonatologist that he had seen a Scarce Blue-tailed Damselfly on our local patch amongst the more abundant Blue-tailed Damselfly. This has now been confirmed and apparently this is now the only site in (the former county of) Avon for these damselflies. What is just as exciting is that this is the 23rd species of dragonfly noted in the park, meaning that we now have more than half the country’s species at the site.

I therefore thought that as there is a Scarce Blue-tailed Damselfly in the park this would be a good time to go and try my hand at photographing dragonflies and damselflies and then try the even more difficult task of identifying them.

Around Duchess Pond there was indeed an abundance of dragonflies and damselflies and here are some of my photographic attempts. I’m less sure about my ID skills.

I may have photographed others!

Other than moorhens, coots and Canada geese I didn’t see many birds except fora very cheery song thrush which posed very nicely for me.