Mystery Italian and French Dragonflies

• By Adey Baker and Mark Rossel, summarized by Richard Fray

 Mystery Italian Dragonfly

I wonder if anyone can identify this dragonfly. The image was photographed digitally from the original slide, so is not brilliant. The original slide is much better. I couldn't see anything on the European Odonata site to match it. I'd be interested to know if anyone recognises it - it's probably something quite common anyway! It was at Lazise on Lake Garda, and it was perched on a little footbridge over a very small stream/ditch in a small park area with a few trees. There were a couple of Serins feeding by the stream, and I was just trying to get within photographic range of them when I saw the dragonfly. It was quite small for a dragonfly but it does look proportionally like a larger hawker doesn't it? It was really the size of a longish-tailed darter - quite a deep red in colour with neat bands around the tail which faded to a sort of pale bluish and black tail-end not unlike a male Southern Hawker.

If you know what it is, please e-mail Adey at: adey@adeyb.fsnet.co.uk

 Meanwhile, in France...

Mark Rossell sent in these photos of a dragonfly he photographed in France. Luckily I was able to identify it from the Country Life Guides Dragonflies and Damselflies of Britain and Northern Europe by Bob Gibbons. It is a Gomphus pulchellus (no English name mentioned), and is closely related to Club-tailed Dragonfly.