A  Large Red Damselfly emerges...

On May 9th I was watching Large Red Damselflies (Pyrrhosma nymphula) egg laying in my garden pond, when I became aware that a larva had climbed out of the pond onto the surround. The pond isn't very large, and is simply a fibre-glass construction with a mix of vegetation surrounding it. There isn't any emergent vegetation, in the form of reeds or the like, so the creature had resorted to climbing the sides.

It looked to be a damselfly larva, and with the expectation that it might hatch I started filming it with my usual still-camera - a Panasonic DMC-FZ38.

Perhaps after the effort of climbing out of the pond, it had difficulty in finding a suitable high-stem and used an inappropriate-seeming stalk with a few leaves that had broken off a geranium. The process began at about 10.30 and lasted through to about 1.15, during which time I managed to get a tripod set up as hand-held in this sort of situation and time-span is a bit difficult!

Once the larva had settled, the actual emergence was very slow and almost imperceptible. Only when it finally broke free of the exuvia was there any real movement, and this was to find a slightly higher position on its tiny geranium stalk to pump up its abdomen and wings. Even this was almost imperceptible; apart from the pumping motion of the abdomen, the lengthening of the wings was a bit like looking at the movement of the hands of a clock.

There was a distinct change in colouring during this process, too - until eventually there was a recognisable Large Red Damselfly sitting on a leaf onto which it had fluttered, and suddenly it had taken off in its first real flight and was gone.

Paul Ferris, 8th June 2011