The Banded demoiselle can be seen flitting around slow-moving rivers, ponds and lakes. The males are metallic blue, with a distinctive dark band across their wings, and the females are a shiny…

Beautiful demoiselle’s are, well, beautiful! Often confused for a dragonfly, these giants of the damselfly world are hard to miss with their metallic blue and green colours.

The Azure damselfly is a pale blue, small damselfly that is commonly found around most waterbodies from May to September. Try digging a wildlife pond in your garden to attract damselflies and…

The variable damselfly looks a lot like the azure damselfly, but is much less common throughout most of the UK.

The blue-tailed damselfly does, indeed, have a blue tail. It is one of our most common species and frequents gardens - try digging a wildlife pond to attract dragonflies and damselflies.

The common banded hoverfly has a fitting name: it is not only one of our most common species, its black body is also covered in yellow bands! It can be seen in many habitats from gardens to…

The metallic-green Emerald damselfly can be seen from June to September around ponds, lakes, ditches and canals. Unlike other damselflies, it holds its wings half-open when perched.

The emperor dragonfly is an impressively large and colourful dragonfly of ponds, lakes, canals and flooded gravel pits. It flies between June and August and even eats its prey on the wing.

A voracious predator that will even eat other dragonflies, the golden-ringed dragonfly is the UK's longest species. It can be found around acidic streams in moorland and heathland habitats.…

The Red-eyed damselfly is a small, but robust, damselfly of canals, ponds, lakes and slow-flowing rivers. As its name suggests, it has bright blood-red eyes, but a mostly black body.

The UK's smallest hawker, the Hairy dragonfly is mostly black in colour, but has a distinctively hairy thorax. It can be found in grazing marshes and flooded gravel pits, and along canals…

Living up to its name the Common blue damselfly is both very common and very blue. It regularly visits gardens - try digging a wildlife-friendly pond to attract damselflies and dragonflies.