Painted Ladies and damselflies.

There has been the odd one of two painted lady butterflies in our garden (Portslade Old Village) this week with a sudden influx of 14 painted lady butterflies (minimum count) on the 26^th May. They were feeding on the dog rose, hebe and red valerian. A wonderful sight!

The damselflies have been emerging from our pond for a couple of weeks now. Most appear to be the large red damselfly Pyrrhosoma nymphula.

On a very windy 26^th May one of the emerging damselflies got into problems and on emerging from its larval form, feel onto the side of the pond. I carefully encouraged the damselfly to grab onto a piece of grass which I stood on my desk in a glass. It was too windy to try to get it back onto the pond plant. Once the damselfly had dried out and started to fly I took it back outside and placed it on the pond plants.

Anyone interested can check out the pics on my web log  http://urbanwildlifejottings.blogspot.com/

Steve Savage