... and another

The late summer seems to have brought about a fresh batch of newly emerged common darters.  This is this morning's newbie, its exuvia is hanging underneath the dead leaf that it is perched upon. It's nearly ready to take flight but was just taking it easy in its little patch of sunshine first thing.  As a result  was able to get quite close to it with the macro lens without any difficulty. 

There's an extra of the local dominant male in flight for you.  Amusingly while he was dozing in the sunshine another pair of conjoined common darters flew in and proceeded to oviposit in his pond.  He eventually noticed and chased after them, but they just flew away, still conjoined and he resumed his lonely bachelor existence.  Finger's crossed that will mean there are some more darters for me to photograph in the years to come.