I saved a damselfly

Post Reply New Topic

So i'm getting into the whole bugs thing. Because they're great, they're interesting and i feel the happiest i've felt in a very long while having something that I can engage with (and it's mostly free).

For a long time, there's a wood near where I live that I have been aching to pass through on my way home from work. But only one of my buses goes that way and it's a bus that I very often miss coming home from work because i arrive at the bus stop about 5 minutes after its due. On Friday however, due to a demonstration happening in the city center, that bus was late and I was able to catch it.

I got my phone ready for taking pics of what I find. I wasn't expecting to see much. This is Britain and it is Leeds. Nothing special lives in Leeds. But what I was most excited about were the tadpoles down in the stream. I made a journey through the woods a few weeks prior and happened to see the stream absolutely covered in tadpoles. I was hoping they were now frogs. But when i got there saw that they were still just tadpoles. Then i spotted something in the water. It looked like a cranefly that had landed in the stream. It was still alive, it was struggling. So I snapped off the top part of a tall plant (the stream is surrounded by boggy mud, I wouldn't have been able to get close enough myself without slipping) so used that to reach out to the insect and scoop it out. It was then that i noticed it was a red damselfly. I place it on my hand and gently blew it to help dry it out. It sat there for ages, cleaning it's legs and wiping it's face. But then i saw that one side of it's double wings were stuck together. No matter how fast he flapped them, they weren't separating and it was taking a real long time, so i decided he was coming home with me. It was only a 10 minute walk back home. The whole time, he sat there on my hand, cleaning himself. He did try to fly off at one point but just flopped to the floor because his wings were still stuck. I just scooped him back up and carried him the rest of the way home.

Finally at home, i put together a make-shift tub with polythene lid with holes in for him. I think he was only in there for 20mins when i went back to check on him he'd managed to separate his wings! So i let him crawl back onto my hand and carried him outside where he eventually flew away

Some people might think me mad. But i don't care if it's a spider, a cat or an eagle or whatever. If it needs help, then I shall help!

Cool.

As the Talmud says "to save a life is to save the world".

Also the damselfly lived on and is now eating gnats and mosquitos - which is good thing.

Congrats on saving a damselfly in distress!

that is one good looking damselfly

Good for you! Hope it continues to live a good buggy life.