Insect Week and Scarcely a Flutter!

It’s not been the best seven days for insects. The UK’s national awareness week for six-legged beasts has largely been blighted by wet weather and it was only due to a brief couple of sunny hours this morning that I was able to get out and take a look at a few.

a male Common Blue Damsel clasps his mate by the neck and attempts to get her in the wheel position - sex can be a complicated business with twelve legs and eight wings getting in the way!

It’s still a bit early in the year for many of my favourite species, in particular the large hawker dragonflies, but a mass emergence of Common Blue Damselflies enallagma cyathigerum and it’s congener the Azure Damsel coenagrion puella at least gave me one or two photo opportunities.

Speckled Wood

Other abundant insects at Elland Gravel Pits included the Speckled Wood pararge aegeria, always a favourite with photographers due to it’s confiding and inquisitive nature. The rather worn looking individuals of early spring have now given way to pristine new butterflies and some particularly stunning individuals were on show around the riverside willow scrub.