{"id":1685,"date":"2010-08-24T22:26:52","date_gmt":"2010-08-24T22:26:52","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.bartbusschots.ie\/blog\/?p=1685"},"modified":"2014-08-07T15:10:45","modified_gmt":"2014-08-07T15:10:45","slug":"photo-of-the-week-119-120-two-new-muses","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.bartbusschots.ie\/s\/2010\/08\/24\/photo-of-the-week-119-120-two-new-muses\/","title":{"rendered":"Photo of the Week 130 & 131 – Two New Muses"},"content":{"rendered":"

For a long time now my two favourite subjects have been trains and butterflies, but this year I’ve started to be attracted by two related new muses. Butterflies are probably the most eye-catching insects in Ireland, but I think the largest are the Dragonflies and Damselflies that fill our summer skies. I’ve only been focusing on these guys for a few months, but I’ve already got some pictures I like enough to include here.<\/p>\n

The first shot I’ve chosen shows a pair of Blue-tailed Damselflies (Ischnura elegans) making more Blue-tailed Damselflies. Two things to note here, firstly, Damselflies opt for a very unique position for mating, and the males and females have very different colours. Adult males of the different species generally look quite distinct (with a few exceptions), but many of the females of the different species look very similar, some species even have females of a few different colours, and to really confuse things, both males and females change colour as they mature. If you can’t recognise what species a Damselfly is, it’s probably a juvenile, or a female, or both. Butterflies are WAY easier to tell apart!<\/p>\n

\"Mating
on Flickr<\/a> – Full-Size<\/a><\/p>\n