Keepers Pond

It's been lovely to be out walking today after all the rain of the previous few days.  I decided I'd walk to Keepers Pond at Hood Green (within the Wentworth Castle parklands) as there had been a couple of dragonflies and plenty of  Common Blue Damselflies the last time I visited back in July.   Today Darter's (I think Common Darters) were the most prevalent species present and I think the ones I photographed were all male, though probably at different stages of maturity.  There was also a larger Dragonfly buzzing around, at one point hovering a foot away from my head, but it never settled.  (Phillip Pullman's Dark Materials comes to mind).  I did manage a couple of flight shots which are not good enough to share but led me to think it was a Common Hawker.  It was joined in flight by a second one briefly, but it clearly wasn't a match.

I also got a reasonable shot of a Speckled Wood butterfly on the way home which was enjoying a blackberry fruit.  I might need to touch up the exposure, but all in all not too bad.

And finally I explored a different route home from Hood Green across the playing field and then along a field boundary.  I knew where it came out on the road and we may have walked it the other way once in the distant past, but it was worth an explore.  

It's still a lovely afternoon here - long may it last, though I don't think it's going to.