Damsels and dragons - emerging problems

[Malcolm Banks]

As I sat with my cuppa by the pond this morning I spotted a newly emerged large red damselfly (Pyrrhosoma nymphula) near the top of a reed just in front of me. As I watched a small, pencil thin spider with very long front legs crept down and promptly began attacking the poor creature. My first instinct was to intervene but I resisted this temptation and before long the spider had its fangs in the gap between head and thorax and the damsel was doomed.
I might have intervened but as the next image shows, there are plenty of P. nymphulas to go around (apologies for lack of focus, the damsel in distress can just be seen behind to the left).


I also spotted a Broad-bodied chaser (Libellula depressa) just beginning to emerge on the leg of my pondside bench last Saturday morning. I thought it would make a good opportunity to make a crude time laspe series, but 8 hours and about 20 shots later it still had made no further progress. It was gone in the morning and I guess I will never know whether it finished it's emergence or whether a bird got it. Inthe image below the four wings buds are free but never expanded. I would hate to think that my photo activity had in some way inhibited the emergence since they are supposed to fully emerged in a few hours.