When damselflies are connected in the tandem mating position, they are large enough to be noticed, especially when they fly right by me, as was the case this past Friday. They were pretty skittish, but I managed to get a couple of relatively clear shots.
My identification task was greatly eased by the fact that these were not one of the multiple blue species that inhabit my local marshland park—there was only a little blue on the tip of the male’s abdomen. Imagine my shock when I learned that these damselflies are Blue-tipped Dancers (Argia tibialis). In my experience, names generally are not that helpful when it comes to identification, but this is an obvious exception.
Sharp-eyed readers may notice that these damselflies look a bit like the one currently featured in the banner of my blog. That damselfly is a Violet Dancer, a subspecies of the Variable Dancer species (Argia fumipennis). Apparently damselflies do a lot of dancing!
If you are interested in seeing some photos and descriptions of the bluet family of damselflies at our local park, check out this recent posting by fellow blogger and photographer Walter Sanford entitled Blue for Bluets.
© Michael Q. Powell. All rights reserved
Mike Powell 
I went kayaking on a local pond the other day and damselflies were everywhere.
Nice. I often wonder what it would be like to be out on the water amidst dragonflies and damselflies.
It’s fun, but nearly impossible to get a decent photo of them.
Thanks for the reference to my post re: American Bluets at HMP, Mike!