Damsels and Dragons

As has probably been obvious, blog posts have dried up over the past three weeks as I've been away on holiday.  The destination (Outer Hebrides) was technologically challenged, although I soon became used to having neither a phone signal nor an Internet connection.  This, combined with the fact that everything is closed on a Sunday, meant it was just like stepping back into childhood.

I'll get round to processing the Hebrides pictures at some point, but in the meantime here are a few images from today's Camera Club outing to the dragonfly pools at Burwash Manor Farm.  Stationary beasties were relatively straightforward, but their flying cousins were certainly more of a challenge.  A significant amount of practice will be required to perfect my technique, I suspect, but I did manage to get a few which were reasonably composed and acceptably sharp.

First some damselflies on sticks.  Easy does it, to start off with...

Then a couple of damselfly pairs mating on the wing.

The next three are Common Darter pairs, I believe, which were busy egg-laying.  I particularly like the one of the dragonflies surrounded by damsels.

There were a pair of Emperors patrolling the pond, but they were difficult to catch because of their fast pace and erratic movement.  It was only when I processed the pictures that I could see that at least one of the dragonflies had badly damaged wings.

Having exhausted myself attempting (and, usually, failing) to photograph the dragonflies, it seemed sensible to go for larger, slower moving targets instead.  In other words, the good old fall-back of Homo photographicus.  Here are Richard, Ann and Mike doing their stuff.

 Ok, so the final picture isn't strictly Homo photographicus.  In fact, I don't even think the animal in question is a member of Cambridge Camera Club.  Given the hot conditions, however, it certainly had the right idea.  Happy as a pig in s***, in fact!

Normal service on the blog front will be resumed as soon as possible, so watch this space.