Two-tone

I don't think this is the male Azure Damselfly that emerged from our patio pond yesterday - if he made it through last night's thunderstorms he will still be black and putty pink. This one looks more like the individual I saw in the wild garden a couple of days ago, who was just beginning to turn blue and had reached the muddy lilac stage. Today there's a hint of pink and a hint of lilac, but his abdomen has nearly achieved its final colour. In another few days his thoracic stripes and eye spots should be blue too, and his eyes will be black above and blue beneath. 

Azure Damselflies have quite a long flight season, potentially from April to September, depending on the weather, but peaking between May and July. The maturation period is around two weeks, with females taking a few days more than males to reach maturity, and thereafter any individual is likely to live less than a week. The Bloomsbury Field Guide gives the mean mature lifespan as 5.5 days, though in one study a couple of especially successful specimens lived nearly a month as breeding adults. It's said by the experts that in any year the emergence of Azure Damselflies is well synchronised, but that hasn't been my experience here this year: they seem to be appearing singly, at quite widely spaced intervals.

Even more strangely, we have Large Red Damselflies - which are well known for all appearing within a couple of weeks in the spring - still doing the same kind of random, asynchronous emergence. Last week a female Large Red came out of the wildlife pond, and today a male emerged. The female is still immature, but looks healthy; I've seen her revisiting the pond already, and I'm confident that if she can find a mate she'll lay her eggs there. Today's male didn't emerge well, sadly, although he'd chosen a good rush with plenty of space round it as his support. His wings didn't expand properly and are quite crinkled, which makes me wonder if he struggled to get out of his exuvia in today's sauna-like heat and humidity. By the time R and I spotted him he'd moved to a different stem, proving that he can fly after a fashion, but I think he'll struggle to catch either prey or a mate.