WHAT rain we have had. Just when you thought it could not possibly rain any harder a new storm would appear and prove you wrong.

Fortunately no-one has been hurt by the storms in our area but for wildlife rain this heavy could have pretty dire consequences.

Particularly if you are an insect and every raindrop must weigh the same as you.

I took a walk along the Staffordshire and Worcestershire Canal between Wolverley and Kinver. This is a wonderful part of the world with some lovely scenery, plenty of wildfife to spot, yet a really easy-going pathway thanks to the British Waterways towpath.

This day, my fascination had been drawn to the damselflies flying among the bankside vegetation bordering the canal.

Probably not the most common but certainly the easiest to spot was the Banded Demoiselle. This is a reasonably large damselfly with a wing span of 60cm plus but it looks even bigger in that, unlike most others, it has dark pigments in its wings which make them really stand out.

The only other damselfly with this feature is the Beautiful Demoiselle, which can be found in the Wyre Forest district but chooses to live around streams with stony, gravelly bottoms and not canals. Just as well really as, at first glance, the females look quite similar.

However, the Banded Demoiselle gets its name from the male which has dark pigment in a distinctive band of colour on its wings.

Even more confusingly, the males can look as if they come in two separate colours, a shimmering blue or bottle green when in fact they are just one colour.

Like a butterfly's wing, the damselfly's colour is produced by light defracting from microscopic scales.

The incidence of the light strikes determines which colour the damselflies appear.

Unfortunately, I got rather enthralled in watching the damselflies' antics and I first became aware of my impending soaking was a rumble of thunder that attracted my attention to the huge purple grey cloud looming behind.

A few moments later it was as if a giant hose had been turned on and billions of large raindrops were turning the usually still waters of the canal into a froth. I certainly wasn't having fun but what of the damselflies? They look such delicate creatures so how could they hope to survive?

As abruptly as it started, the storm passed and the sun flicked back creating a rainbow.

Then I saw a flicker of a banded wing and the damselflies were back in the air seemingly none the worse for their ordeal.