Dragonfly

Broad-bodied Chaser, a female or an immature male.

The dragonfly kept returning to this vantage point overlooking a sunny clearing in Myer's Allotment (thank you, Wildinlailand).

Dr T turned up unexpectedly yesterday afternoon: a pleasant surprise, and all the excuse that was needed to spend some time today botanising and on what turned out to be another unsuccessful duke hunt. I fear for the dukes, has the series of damp Springs done for them in some of their regular haunts here? This glorious weather would surely have brought them out at Gait Barrows if their numbers were not severely reduced.

As for the dragonfly, theirs' is a more successful story of a steady march northwards as the climate warms. A few years ago we would not have seen this species here.

An update on Reg. The hot weather has brought him out of his shell. He has spent most of the last couple of days bumbling through the garden, and doing circuits of the perimeter wall. He clearly has the urge to be a peripatetic tortoise. The tracker has been attached with sticking plasters, and at one stage this afternoon, he came rustling out into the open without it. So we had the tortoise, but not the tracker. Clearly when he is in hyperactive mode, the tracker is redundant as we can follow his progress by the crackling and rustling of dead leaves and vegetation. The difficulty is when he stops, particularly if he has managed to brush the tracker off during his perambulations.

What a superb weekend: climbing, cycling, Duke hunting, botanising, ice cream eating, allotment tending, and sharing with friends and family.