Frustrated damselflies

It has been a frustrating season for damselfly couples: It seems that there is a shortage of suitable housing in which to raise a new family.

Usually by the end of July, damselflies have found partners, mated, flown off together, found accommodation, and laid eggs. This year seems to have been different. The problem is the availability of nurseries. Other years, many aquatic weeds breaking the surface of the Lake provide ideal egg-laying sites. This year, those plants have not quite reached the water surface leaving damselfly couples to search endlessly for accommodation.

Certainly, there is mating. Yet, this activity, which was so conspicuous in previous years, wasn’t this season. Rather, what was seen were couples searching endlessly for egg-laying sites. Here a male (blue) guides a female (yellow) in their search for a nursery.

When a more permanent site is not found, desperation seems to have driven one couple to pick a drifting leaf — who knows where it will end up? The laying is further complicated by the harassment of another desperate male who really wants the female for himself.

The situation is so desperate that one couple that actually found a tiny bit of floating aquatic weed is mercilessly pummelled by rivals. Another male has landed on the female’s back in an attempt to mate with her, and two other rivals hover overhead. What the female thinks of all of this went unrecorded.