Her highness

Blue Emperor (Anax imperator)

Our pond was a hive of activity over the past month, with multiple species of damselfly and dragonfly buzzing over its surface, pairing up and egg-laying, or perching on sticks around its edges. One of our visitors was this female Blue Emperor (Anax imperator) which spent several weeks making regular forays to deposit her eggs under the Frogbit (Hydrocharis morsus-ranae) leaves. She's impressively large; at 7.8 cm (a little over 3 inches) long and with a wingspan of 10.5 cm (more than 4 inches), Blue Emperors are among Britain's biggest dragonflies. The species is named for the male, which is indeed primarily blue. The female, however, is gloriously green, except for that reddish-brown stripe running the length of her abdomen. They're found across much of Great Britain, with a range that's expanded considerably since the 1990s. They're still pretty rare in Scotland, where they only arrived in the early 2000s. They're primarily found on larger bodies of water, so we feel quite privileged that this female chose our little puddle.