Sunny

I've chosen this  image for today because it has a peaceful sort of fluffy-clouds-in-a-sunny-sky vibe about it, though you don't have to look hard to see that this is an illusion: the blue in the bokeh is reflected sky on the surface of the River Avon, and the "clouds" are two other grass stalks, behind the one on which my subject was sitting. In fact they were all acting as perches for Banded Demoiselles, and I did try to line them up to get all three damsels in the same shot, but I couldn't get to the right angle without getting in the river, and I wasn't quite that keen.

There was a lot of Banded Demoiselle action going on at Barton this afternoon, and earlier I'd had a go at capturing some of them in flight - a ridiculous performance that had me crimson in the face and dripping sweat within a few minutes. Luckily (though I suppose, almost unluckily) after about sixty frames I suddenly felt the fishing peg on which I was standing shift underneath me, and this gave me all the excuse I needed for scrambling back up the bank to safety. I've put the only two acceptable shots I captured on my Facebook page, if you'd like to see them; both were taken at a shutter speed of 1/3200 second, and the ISO was through the roof, but I was able to repair some of their deficiencies with Topaz software.

In other news, in the garden this morning I surprised and put to flight an extremely fresh Common Darter. Her wings were so soft they would barely support her, so it was probably her maiden flight, and as she later circled round towards our tiny patio pond I checked the vegetation there and found what I believe to be two Common Darter exuviae. As far as I know this is the first season we've ever produced Common Darters, so I'm very pleased.

R: C4, D13.