Lift

Because I was feeling better today, and it was beautifully warm and sunny, I decided to go to Croome, where I could combine a good walk and a dragon hunt. Various bits of domestic and computer administration, plus general fartnarkling around, kept me in the house till lunchtime, but I just assumed that this would allow the Sunday morning Croome crowds to disperse, and improve the chance of a peaceful visit. When I arrived though, I was astonished to see my friend RC standing in the road, stewarding cars on and off the estate, and he told me to expect a ten minute wait for a parking space. In other words, it was absolutely heaving.

Luckily, not everyone who goes to Croome has the time or inclination to walk the entire boundary of the watercourse, so the carriage splash pool was fairly quiet. All of my praying to the Odonata Gods failed to get me another Willow Emerald Damselfly, but there were numerous Migrant Hawkers and good numbers of Common Darters around, as well as - more surprisingly - a few Southern Hawkers, and a couple of Ruddy Darters.

I didn't have the best afternoon with the camera - partly because the dragons were all warm and skittish, but mainly because I'm still a bit below par, and missed shots that I'd normally expect to nail. This one pleases me though: the late afternoon light on the reed bed was lovely, and I like the tension between the Migrant Hawker's moving wings and his still-gripping claws. He'd been resting on this reed for about fifteen seconds, but a rival had just come into his territory who needed to be seen off, and this was the moment when he began to apply lift. Despite the fact that I was shooting in burst mode at 1/1000 second, the following frame contained nothing but an empty reed and a disappearing blur of legs.