Dancing demoiselles rise from their watery world

Attingham, Shropshire Over centuries people have watched with wonder these almost unreal, too bright, too quick insects

The banded demoiselles are dancing like laser lights over the river Tern. There is something CGI about these creatures: too bright, too quick, too beautiful to be real.

The banded demoiselle is large for a damselfly, small for a dragonfly; a 40mm long emerald-cobalt pin with gauzy wings marked with the indigo fingerprints of when they were plucked from the water, or so it seems.