Stealth

One of R's oldest friends came to call today (that's to say, they've known each other since school, rather than that he's in any sense geriatric), so I left them to their boy talk and went off to Stratford to tackle one of the longest-standing items on my to-do list: washing one of our spare duvets at the laundrette. In one way it was the worst possible weather for it - I was already pink and steaming before I entered the building, and after sitting in the sauna-like atmosphere for a while I pretty much trickled out under the door - but I'd waited till the middle of summer because I knew the duvet would dry quickly and thoroughly once I got it home.

The laundrette is just a step away from Mill Lane, which leads down to the river, so I used the opportunity to check on the Odonata at Lucy's Mill (where the atmosphere was almost as steamy as it was in the laundrette). There were several Emperors and Brown Hawkers patrolling the area around the bridges for food and females, and for once I managed a few credible photos of them in flight, but they were too distant to be worth posting. Instead I'm going with this mature male Scarce Chaser, who was also patrolling for food and females - but unlike the big guys, who were managing to maintain a fragile truce by largely ignoring each other, he was also having to avoid one of them making a meal out of him. I've never heard of a Brown Hawker killing something as large as a Scarce Chaser, but an Emperor will take down pretty much anything it can get its jaws around - over the last couple of seasons I've seen photos of one eating a Common Clubtail, and more recently a Golden-ringed Dragonfly - so my heart lurched a few times as I watched the Chaser having to use his speed and manoeuvrability to get himself out of harm's way.

R has chosen this photo because he says the Chaser's almost monochrome colouring makes him think of a stealth aircraft, which is pretty apt in the circumstances: I doubt he'd have avoided the attention of the Emperors if he'd still been wearing his juvenile livery. You may be able to see just a hint of red reappearing about half way along his abdomen, where the claws of successive breeding partners have scratched away some of the blue pruinescence, but luckily it wasn't enough to have acted as a target.

R: C4, D6.