Damselflies at Sheffield Park 🐉

For my mum’s birthday in early August, we visited Sheffield Park in East Sussex, just over the border from West Sussex. It’s a National Trust estate so membership is needed to avoid the £17 entrance fee.

I didn’t have a camera with me other than my phone, but the Pixel 7a has an amazing camera, so I managed some nice pics of a few damselflies.

Obviously these are people not dragonflies, but the area was absolutely zinging with Odonata (the scientific name for dragons and damsels). This is looking back towards where the estate house is, though it’s not somewhere you can enter. People live there like in olden times.

Perched on the edge of the giant rhubarb (Gunnera – a super invasive wetland plant installed in places like Sheffield Park long ago for their showy foliage) was a small red-eyed damselfly.

What a beauty. Damselflies generally rest with closed wings, while dragonflies have them open. That notion was quickly dispelled by my next sighting. Usually dragons are much bigger anyway, by the way.

I was chatting to my sister when I noticed a damsel had taken a very pleasing perch in a shrub. A damselfly holding its wings out!

Now this is a willow emerald damsel, a species which ten years ago people were losing their minds over. It was a new arrival in the UK, and likely indicative of a warming climate. Now they are everywhere in southern England, and we’re experiencing temperature breakthroughs year on year.

I was just pleased to share a nice day in Sussex with my nearest and dearest. You can’t ask for much more than that, except for maybe some beautiful damselflies.

Thanks for reading.

Macro