Willowy

I spent the morning and early afternoon trying to catch up on domestic tasks, and feeling as if I was running to stand still. Then, after we'd had a simple meal from the freezer, I went off around the village in search of photos.

When I reached the old village pond there was one female Southern Hawker ovipositing into reeds in the centre of the water, and another rustling around in the undergrowth where a hedge overhangs the southern end of the pond, plus a single male Common Darter patrolling for rivals and females, while trying to stay away from me. So far, so as expected. But then something fluttered across my peripheral vision, and I turned in time to see a long, slender damselfly drift across the area where I was standing, and land on an elder tree. Surely not...? I thought, tiptoeing after it. But it was - and really, given the shape, it couldn't not have been - one of the most sought-after damselflies in the Shire: the Willow Emerald. Even as I shot him from this angle, the length of his abdomen, his white claspers and his pale wing spots gave me the identification, but eventually I managed to edge far enough round to get a side-on shot, and the pale and dark interlinked spurs on the side of his thorax confirmed it.

"Thirty three!" I beamed at R when I got back to the house. "And I bet it's the first Willow Emerald record on this edge of the county!" Not that I'm pathologically competitive or anything, but... Yes, well - I think I'd better leave that there.

Best of the rest was the Hummingbird Hawkmoth who turned up outside the kitchen door an hour later, to feed from the red valerian growing along the edge of the patio. The light was still good enough for a shutter speed of 1/1250, but that's nowhere near fast enough to freeze wings that are said to beat 800 times per second. I can live with the wing blur though, and the messiness of the valerian patch, given that I managed to catch the moth between nectar dips, with its proboscis loosely curled. They're mad little beasts - and as R says, more interesting than beautiful - but photographing them presents a challenge I can never resist.