Sunday 16 September 2012

Face to Face with the Damsels

I had not planned to go out today but mid morning the kids went off to a party with the wife and this gave me a few hours to go out with the camera. The weather was not that inspiring with quite a strong wind and cloud so I decided to drive over to Stodmarsh to see if the Great White Egrets were about. I arrived 20 minutes later at Stodmarsh and was soon at the Reedbed hide where Steve Ashton and Mike Gould already were. They had seen only 1 Great White Egret and not long after one duly took flight distantly from the reeds and flew further away and landed out of sight. That was the only view I had and so with Mike and Steve moving on as they had been in the hide for hours I gave it 30 minutes to see what would appear. Not much is the answer but I managed to just about keep some notes with 15 Cormorant, 1 Green Sandpiper, 2 Jay, 2 Chiffchaff, 1 Marsh Harrier, 5 Grey Heron, 1 Great crested Grebe, 1 Cetti's Warbler, 1 Treecreeper and c1000 House Martins moving west with the odd Sand Martin and Swallow in with them. Of late I have really enjoyed taking photos of dragonflies and damselflies and with that in mind I decided to hatch a plan to see if I could get any shots of the Common Blue damselfly face on. I returned to the car and drove over to Reculver where I knew there was a quiet area that I could spend some time photographing these damselflies. Despite the wind I managed to find 20+ Common Blue damselflies and set about trying to get the shots I wanted. I spent the next hour crawling around on the floor getting a number of pleasing images and pretty much the shots I had in my mind before I arrived. I find these creatures fascinating and can't wait until next year already when I shall hopefully add a number of new species I am yet to see. Also in the area there were c10 Common Darters, 1 Emperor dragonfly and c10 Migrant Hawkers including a mating pair allowing for a few more shots to be taken. A very pleasant few hours with the mission accomplished.



14 comments:

  1. Nice one with the Damsels Marc. I find I can just spend hours with these insects, mostly trying and failing to get shots like yours!

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  2. Trust me Warren, there were lots that got deleted.

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  3. Woow Marc
    you very nice post amazing¡¡
    regards¡

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  4. One day I'm going to take pictures like that. Me and mum spent a wet but fun day watching 7000 pink footed geese at Martin mere. From Findlay

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  5. Great Odonata shots Marc very nice !

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  6. Fantastic shots again Mark- love the angle and depth of field

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  7. Great job, especially considering the conditions. Macro photography is a brilliant diversification during the summer months when the birding goes quiet and as you will have already realised just as challenging but in a totally different way. And then you get the people that stare at you while you crawl about on the deck while trying to capture certain shots !!......and the ones who give you a wide birth and pretend they didn't see you.

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  8. Absolutely brilliant Marc, the macro is a fine instrument.

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  9. Those Damsels head on are superb!!

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  10. Hola Marc bellas imgenes de estas libelulas.Un saludo.

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  11. Fantásticas fotos.. Si si.. Face to face and eye to eye.. :-)))
    Greetings

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  12. Nice job! I'd say you achieved your goal successfully! Beautiful shots!

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  13. What an impressive look for these damselfly ! Very beautiful pictures !

    Jean-Michel
    http://leblogdugeai.canalblog.com

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