Backyard Bonanza!

With a day of sunshine, some gardening to do and the kids happily playing with their mates I had most of the day in the garden where it turned out to be a very good day indeed. I looked out about 9am in the pond to see 1 Large Red Damselfly nymph sitting at the base of a stem with its head out. With the temperature warming up, I felt sure that it would emerge at some point during the day so I prepared the camera ready for some action. The next hour or so passed with no emergence but it was nice to see a Common Buzzard fly overhead and also a Comma butterfly landed on the washing on the line. A few Small Tortoiseshell flew through as did a couple of Peacock and 2 Swallow called as they made their way over the house. Around lunchtime I was sat near the pond when the gulls started going mad and searching the sky revealed 1 Red Kite flying west. These are annual here seemingly at this time of year. The next couple of hours still failed to produce a damselfly but I did see a further 3 Red Kite flying west almost together. Mid afternoon arrived and checking the pond at last revealed the Large Red Damselfly nymph starting to climb up the stem. It was at an awkward angle for the camera and I had to lean over the water to try to get some images. After securing itself on the stem, I waited for the action to happen and as it started to emerge, the top set of legs come away from the stem. This caused the nymph to lean out more than it probably would want to and as more emerged it started to emerge more horizontally. I had hoped that these would be the perfect photos capturing the whole emergence but at this angle, it was not to be. I don't know why but I also seemed to over expose a number of shots, I think the sun must have got to me! I took a number of shots but i'm sure I will have another chance to get this right in the next week or so. With so many factors needed for this to work, weather, nymph in the right place, emergence at the right angle, nice background colour etc I will continue to work on this plan on how to improve. Despite the shots etc not quite working out, it was again a superb experience watching the damselfly emerge from start to finish. To top off the day, the 5th Red Kite of the day flew west over the house late afternoon while I was relaxing at the table with a well earned cup of tea. There's always another chance tomorrow............. maybe!

Large Red Damselfly 'Emerging'