Gotcha!

LARGER.....

A couple of weeks ago I had my first ever sighting of a Scorpion Fly (Panorpa germanica) - a male, distinguished by the red bulbous shape at the end of the body. I managed a reasonable shot of it, but simply used it as a link to my blip that day, as I had a much better pic to blip. Since then (as I've mentioned on several occasions, lol) I've been on a mission to find and blip another one. I've spent a good few blip-hunting sessions in the paddock searching specifically for them. I've had a few more sightings of the males, and a couple of females - always when too windy for a shot, or they've hidden from me, or the last time on the 19th when I was headbutted in the stomach by the ruddy thing! The fact that after my first sighting of it a couple of other blippers have had the darned things pose nicely for them to blip has been a source of envy and frustration to me!

But finally today I found another male. He, like the others, was rather shy and kept climbing round the back of the stem he was on. So each time I just moved quietly away to get some bee shots, then once he'd come back onto the top of the stem, moved in slowly for another shot. It was pretty windy today but I managed 5 shots, 3 were rubbish and 2 were blippable. This was the best after a sharpen. It's still not perfect but what the hell - at least I have my hard earned and much coveted Scorpion fly blip at last! As I commented on a previous blip - patience usually pays off ....

At one point I spotted a large red-tailed bee on a thistle flower. I don't know if it's just pigged out on pollen, or getting lethargic now, but at one point it just - well - sort of - fell off! lol. It landed on the grass, and rather than fly it crawled across the grass back to the thistle stem and proceeded to climb back up. Most odd. But I grabbed this shot of it as it made it's way back to the thistle. I really like this pic, technically far better than the Scorpion fly, but now I had my Scorpion fly shot I was damned if I was going to blip anything else! lol

On the 12th I blipped the scrawny, fleshy Swallow chicks in the stable. Well, today I took another shot from floor level - what a difference 15 days has made!