A ‘banded young lady’…

Granted, that title just doesn’t seem quite right.  Nevertheless, it stands because I posted about a ‘beautiful young lady’ (Beautiful Demoiselle) a couple of weeks back.  This one is the other Demoiselle damselfly we get in the UK; the Banded Demoiselle.  Fairly obviously the ‘banded’ relates to the dark band across the wing of the male of the species.  Its ‘beautiful’ cousin having a completely dark wing - see here.  

Photographing this damselfly didn’t this time entail getting my feet wet but the image was from a kayak on my local canal.  It makes for a bit of a challenge controlling a kayak while trying to get close in to about 4’ with a long lens without disturbing the mini-beast who has excellent vision.  

It’s ideal to use a kayak for this sort of thing because it is almost impossible to see the action just from the bank.   Each male defends a territory at right water level on the vegetation at the water’s edge.  From the bank you can occasionally see one alight on the top of a waterside bush.  However, from the water, you can watch these males seeing off another, sometimes two, rivals before they come back to a favourite perch on a leaf in the sun.  These mini battles are happening every few minutes along the placid canal.  I don’t spot a single female though.  That’s not so surprising as, my guidebook tells me that, the females eschew the riverbank unless looking for a male or when laying eggs.  

D500 with 300mm f/4E PF with TC-14E iii (420mm) at closest focus. 1/800 at f/8, ISO 400.