Hoxa, Sunday 5th July 2015

After an early morning walk down to the shore in warm sunshine and the lightest of breezes, I was given special dispensation to partake of a spot of dragon hunting, before the main event of the day, a trip to Herston to nose about other folks' gardens.

So, just before lunch, we drove over to South Ronaldsay and onto Hoxa, to check the various pools for any odonatalogical interest.

The small reservoir in the old quarry is particularly sheltered, so that the 'shallow end' (with its emergent vegetation and silage bale windbreak) is an excellent piece of habitat. Sure enough, we soon struck gold with plenty of Blue-tailed Damselflies in various states of maturity.

I was able to find many recently-emerged individuals, some still located at their emergence site along with their exuviae, and other teneral damsels, having taken their maiden flight. I was especially delighted to spot a few exuviae which were upside down, as Blue-tails are known for sometimes emerging... er... arse about face.

There were also some mature damsels, in variously-hued in either blue, green, orange or purple. One unfortunate individual was caught in a spider's web, which normally presents me with an ethical dilemma - whether to intervene or not. In this instance, the action was taking place out of arm's reach and came to a dramatic conclusion before I could find a suitable (or unsuitable, if you're of an arachnid persuasion) stick.

Here's the sequence I photographed (see, I was going to follow it through to the grisly denouement, you doubting readers!)...

Upon reviewing these images, I am now wondering whether the spider's intention was to free the damselfly, before its frantic attempts to escape wrecked the carefully-constructed web. I know, it isn't like me to give a spider the benefit of the doubt, eh?

However, just as it looked like curtains for the Blue-tail, it plummeted into the water, so out of the frying pan and into the fire - not the best analogy, I admit.

I managed to find it again, once it had struggled onto a piece of vegetation and was busy cleaning the remnants of the web silk from its body.

Phew!

Other damsels were being more circumspect, trying to avoid arachnids and humans.

A little further along the road, the other pools were not so sheltered, and consequently we only found two adult damselflies. Though we were on a public road, we had to run the gauntlet of a nearby tern colony, which proved to be... er... interesting. It was dread o'clock!