Sunday 10 May 2015

The Four Spotted Chaser

I made a couple of brief visits out today where I spent an hour or so this morning at a site south of Reculver and then later in the day, I spent an hour over at Shuart, just east of Reculver. With the sun breaking through this morning, the plan was to stick the wellies on and go searching through the shallows looking for any emerging dragonflies. Arriving at 8am, I was soon in the water checking the likely areas but despite a good search and an annoying brisk wind, I failed to find any emerging or any exuvia. I then decided on a walk around the perimeter of the water and in a sheltered area with some long grass, I heard the rustling of wings and a Four spotted Chaser took to the air and was blown back down into some long grass. I went into stealth mode and on my knees, I was able to creep up on this fresh immature female and take a few photos. She flew a few times but always landed again but after playing around with a few settings, I had a few pleasing efforts to take home with me.


Four spotted Chaser (female)

I left her to it to warm up for the day and made my way back to the entrance where on the way, I saw a few teneral Common Blue Damselflies. I will get a few photos of these in the next few weeks no doubt. Later this afternoon and with a brief gap in between family time, I spent an hour walking at Shuart where the target was the Hairy Dragonfly and after a good search I found 3 males patrolling and thankfully one posed nicely for my first photos this year of one of my favorite species. Hopefully if they come out alright, I will post these tomorrow.


Four spotted Chaser (female)

10 comments:

  1. Very nice Marc, all shiny and new! Cant wait to find one myself :-) I only get one Hairy at at time here, so its pot luck if I come across it! LoL

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    1. Cheers Warren. Always nice to get them when they are just out of the showroom.

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  2. Beautiful Chaser images, you have made it so fantastic.

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    1. Cheers Bob, these were the ones that come out alright. The other 40 didn't!! Keep pointing and clicking, that's my motto.

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  3. Thanks Steve. The 7d is clearly much better to my eye than the 50d. Seems to capture more detail in these macro shots which is all I hoped for when upgrading, so far so good!!

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  4. Another super set of photos Marc. As usual the colours and detail in your shots are fantastic.

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    1. Thanks Ian, starting to get the hang of the Canon 7d now. So far so good!

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  5. The chaser looks nicely gilded. Beautiful images.

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  6. Another nice set Marc, very crisp.

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  7. Stunning macro images as ever Marc! Fantastic work

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