There be dragons...

A hot, bright morning. I went on macro safari to the onions and then round the wood and orchard. I never realised that there were so many dragon flies, and several species too. I'm certainly no expert but I think I managed to identify this one as a Black-tailed Skimmer (Orthetrum cancellatum) but I can't say if it's an immature male or an adult female. I have done a little basic reading about dragon flies. They can survive up to about 10 weeks and they settle with their wings open like this one. (Damsel flies close them along their bodies.) Odonata (dragonflies) eat mosquitoes and other small insects. They are eaten by birds, particularly wagtails. Maybe that's why our wagtails look happy.

If you approach dragonflies calmly, without letting your shadow fall on them they let you get fairly close sometimes. Obviously you need to be patient. Another one was quite irritated by the camera 20cms from its nose and flew at it several times to scare it off!

I took so many shots that I batch processed 180 raw files and I'm not sure that this is the best since I went cross-eyed looking at them all. There aren't too many interesting birds or butterflies at the moment. The scarlet moths I was actually hoping for were absent.

A little later on, a dark rumbling approached and we had another intense downpour with plenty of hail at the high point. The onions will be pleased.