Banded bonding

R and I are road tripping for the next couple of days, but soon after setting off we had to break our journey in Stratford, where he had a hospital appointment. I used that time to go down to Lucy's Mill and take a quick Odonata count - there were only a hundred or so Banded Demoiselles present, plus a dozen Blue-tailed and one Azure Damselfly, and three Scarce Chasers, but one of the Chasers gave me good views, and I was especially pleased to see this pair of Banded Demoiselles in cop. 

In theory Banded Demoiselle males perform a special courtship flight to woo potential mates, during which they flutter around in a circle and briefly throw themselves on their backs onto the surface of the water, but I have to say that I've never seen this - though I have seen plenty of frustrated males flinging themselves at a female who's ovipositing in tandem with her mate, trying to break the attendant male's grip so that they can steal his girl. In this case the female was sitting calmly on a nettle by the side of the Avon when the male swooped in and grabbed her. There was then a brief tussle, during which they disappeared right down into the nettles, before they came up again, perched on the bindweed, and formed the mating wheel. Copulation takes about ninety seconds in Banded Demoiselles, during which time the male first makes characteristic pumping movements with his second and third abdominal segments to remove any sperm the female still has stored from previous matings, before inseminating her with his own.

Once Richard was free we continued our journey to the Frozen North, where we're staying for the next couple of nights in a comfortable rented flat in Filey. Tomorrow: Bempton Cliffs!