31 AUGUST 2026 – WESTERN WILLOW EMERALD DAMSELFLY

I’d been photographing a male Western Willow Emerald Damselfly for the second time this month (although of course I have no way of telling if it was in fact the same individual) but when processing the images on my computer, there were two things I hadn’t initially noticed when I was taking the photographs: (a) it had a damaged left lower wing, and (b) a close-up of the head showed that it had two protuberances between the eyes which initially suggested that the insect possessed two pairs of eyes.

I consulted a local expert, Rory Dimond, who advised that these were ocelli – simple light sensitive organs, which detect light and dark, and not eyes in the accepted sense; they are common to many invertebrates, including bees, flies and dragonflies etc. Absolutely fascinating. Here are some of the images taken.

The Western Willow Emerald Damselfly was first recorded in the UK in 2007 and has since flourished in East Anglia in particular. I was the first person to record the species at Thorley Wash, Hertfordshire in August 2017, and is now seen regularly along the River Stort from late July to late October, and occasionally into November. I did have a ‘fly-by’ individual in my garden in September 2021, but this August I’ve seen three - a single male on 8 August and two males on 30 August - one which settled on the Rough Horsetail, and another which only came to the pond to ‘buzz’ the other when it flew up from its perch. I never did manage to find out where this second insect came from (or where it went to) each time it ‘buzzed’ the first one, but it must have been very nearby.