A WALK to check cattle fencing near the banks of the river Stour next to Puxton Marshes revealed one of the site’s most beautiful visitors.

I heard a ‘plop’ in the river, just behind a tangle of nettle and comfrey, and I hoped to catch a glimpse of what could possibly have been a water vole .

After fighting through some of the bank side vegetation for a closer look, there was no sign of anything other than a mallard and the faint shadows of a few small fish.

By this point, the sun had broken through the cloud cover, and the footpath’s wild edges had come alive with a variety of creatures. Bumble bees were ‘rolling’ through the air from flower to flower and damselflies were warming themselves on the tallest foliage. I find them beautiful and fascinating.

Each was a glorious deep metallic blue, with a large blue-black spot on each of its wings. With this patch of colour it could only be one creature, the banded demoiselle (or banded agrion).

This is one of Britain’s largest damselflies at about 45mm in length, much larger than most other damselflies, apart from the beautiful demoiselle, but it can be easily differentiated from this because the wings of the beautiful demoiselle appear almost entirely blue black, not spotted.

While this approach to identification seems simple, it only works for the male of each species, the females of both are very similar having no wing markings at all, but still very attractive with their pale metallic green livery. This colouration gives them excellent camouflage.

Damselflies generally are agile fliers, not quite up to the impressive standards of their larger relatives the dragonflies, as they are noticeably slower. They hunt other flying insects, shooting out from the vegetation; they arrange their spiky legs into a sort of basket shape.

The demoiselles are also capable of this; however, their larger, broader wings appear more fluttery. This is when the large wing spots are most noticeable also and really add to their beauty. You can often see the males almost ‘dancing’ in the air to attract a mate. Mating occurs usually while in flight. The female is released and moves away to lay her eggs, which she does in still, or slow moving water. The eggs are laid among aquatic vegetation with the female often completely submerging herself in the process.

Once the eggs hatch, development is a slow process, taking approximately two years to complete, and spend the winters, buried in the muddy bottom of their pond or stream. The nymph is a strange-looking aquatic predator spending all its time in the water. It is stick-like with particularly long legs, but most impressive are their formidable, extendable jaws that can be retracted and kept folded under their heads. They largely hunt other aquatic invertebrates.

As they grow and develop, they moult and just before their final moult they clamber out of the water, and climb up the emergent vegetation. Once over, the final moult results in the adult animal. It isn’t quite the beauty it will eventually be though as its wings are creased. Before it can take flight, it basks in the warmth of the sun, pumping blood around its wings. The blood is then drained back into the body, while the wings harden. It is then ready for its first flight, and to begin hunting other insects.

ADAM HAMILTON