Dragonfest

I thought a stroll by the River Great Ouse at Roxton might be nice this morning. It certainly was...





Banded Demoiselles are probably my favourite insects. If I had to choose one species to watch all year, it would be this one.

I can remember seeing them for the first time along the River Nene when I was a kid, but I couldn't work out what the funny black-green-blue butterfly fluttering along the water's surface was. It all makes sense now...

They're beautiful, graceful, common, easy to photograph - but then they do things like this:

female demoiselle eating mayfly

There were a few other insects out and about, too:

Scarce Chaser: so scarce you have to have a license to handle them. We saw 20 today (and 250+ Banded Demoiselles) in less than a kilometre of riverbank vegetation

Hairy Dragonfly

White-legged Damselfly

photos taken with Canon EOS 30D, EF 300mm f/4L IS USM. They didn't look this dark in Photoshop...

White-legged

I took a different route at lunchtime today and got lucky by finding this male White-legged Damselfly. They're normally found in habitats with moving water - there's not much of that at the top of the hill - but the River Ivel runs not so far away, so I guess he'd wandered up from there.

White-legged Damselfly

Blue-tailed Damselfly

blackberries ripening already

photos taken with Canon EOS 30D, EF 300mm f/4L IS USM

Macro at Houghton Mill

Gastrophysa viridula?

Went on an insect-hunting expedition to Houghton Mill, near Huntingdon. By the time we got there, it was very overcast and looked likely to rain, which I thought would work against us. But in fact the opposite was true.

Our chief quarry was White-legged Damselfly, Platycnemis pennipes, an uncommon species not present in the PBC area. I know next to nothing about insects so it was a good job that Steve was there to tell me what was what.

Since I bought my second-hand Nikon Coolpix 995 last year, I've become much more interested in insects because the brilliant macro function enables me, an unskilled idiot, to take excellent photos (even if I do say so myself). So please excuse me if I go over the top with my pictures in this post, because I'm delighted with them!












Female (top three) and male Banded Demoiselle, Agrion splendens




Male White-legged Damselfly, Platycnemis pennipes. The white legs are dangled in flight to attract females.




Freshly-emerged ('teneral') Scarce Chaser, Libellula fulva




Male (top) and female Red-eyed Damselfly, Erythromma najas


Blue-tailed Damselfly, Ischnura elegans

What's in my CD player: Grand Slang - City Slang label compilation.