Saturday, May 31, 2008

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...

5 comments:

  1. Nice pictures. I enjoyed this post.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Wonderful photos. These fast flyers can be quite difficult to capture. I envy your variety, too!

    ReplyDelete
  3. I first saw these in Denmark while canoe touring on a lake a couple of years ago. Flapping lazily about like fantasy clockwork toys. I thought how exotic and striking they were.

    I've since seen them on the Leeds-Liverpool canal within the "city limits" of Leeds.

    ReplyDelete
  4. i love this blog! keep up good works...its to be nice if we can know each other, do you think so?

    ReplyDelete
  5. These are spectacular photos. Well done!

    ReplyDelete