Reds

It's always a thrill to see the first damselfly of the season. It's invariably a large red, these emerge first. In 2019 they were seen in March, they're quite late this year. This one was sluggish as we'd just had a downpour. I'm glad the bug season has kicked off. I saw my first malachite beetle of 2021 yesterday and photographed hairy shieldbugs this morning.

We saw one of the local Reynards on our evening walk. It was sprightly but its tail and rear quarters were completely bare, poor thing. A very bad case of mange. :(