Quote:
Originally Posted by britnik  A couple of questions if I may,
How do you tell a immature male keeled skimmer from an immature female keeled skimmer?
Are there any quick ways of identifying small red eyed damselflies from the large? |
Hi Britnik
Immature male Keeled Skimmers have a lot more black along the sides of the abdomen then females and if you get a view where you can see the end of the abdomen the male claspers are longer and close together whereas the female's are shorter and more widely spaced. Looking at your pic again I can see it's actually a female! (Always best for me to post before the bottle of wine
)
Examples from the galley -
female
and imm male
[img]http://www.wildaboutbritain.co.uk/pictures/data/24/thumbs/6961
_keeled_skimmer.jpg[/img]
Red-eyed / Small Red-eyed
With a good view through binoculars it's easy to pick out the different blue patterns of the abdomen segments. When I'm in the is it / isn't it zone (and scope left in the car!) I find that Red-eyed Damselflies are quite 'chunky' and I can normally see them when I take the bins away - the small Red-eyed just seem to disappear! Red-eyed are as big as Common Blues and often clashing with them on the ponds I go to. It may be my eyesight I've never found the 'different' colour of the eyes as mentioned in the fieldguides to be of use in the field.
Hope that helps, Paul