Wednesday 19 August 2015

A Date With The Emperor!

With the forecast looking good today with warm sunshine and light winds, I had a few hours out where I visited a few sites to see what was about and hopefully a photographic opportunity would come my way. I started off spending a few hours at a site near Reculver where I saw good numbers of Common Blue and Blue tailed Damselfly along with Common Emerald Damselfly, a few Black tailed Skimmer and hundreds of Common Darter in tandem over the water. A look for Migrant Hawker produced 4 individuals and there were good numbers of Ruddy Darter. I stood watching for a while on some higher ground where I saw good numbers of Emperor Dragonfly involved in keeping territories and chasing rivals away. It was here that I decided on today's challenge of trying to get a decent image of an Emperor Dragonfly in flight, something that has really eluded me so far this year. For once, rather than just pick a random individual, I looked at which way the wind was coming from and made my way round the water so the at the wind was blowing at my back. In this way I hoped that I would find an Emperor Dragonfly hovering into the wind which would give me the chance I wanted. After a brief scan, I found a willing target working a small area of water and got into good position. I spent the next hour taking a good number of photos from different distances but occasionally he would come in quite close enabling me to grab a few pleasing shots. It certainly worked I think with the wind making the Emperor hover nicely and these are by far my best images I have of this species in flight. I then moved on visiting two more sites where I noted 10 Willow Emerald Damselfly, 1 Brown Hawker, 1 Southern Hawker as well as a few more Emperor and Migrant Hawker. A great session again in nice weather and all the more pleasing to have captured some very pleasing shots, mission accomplished!








Emperor Dragonfly (male)

10 comments:

  1. Great images Marc. I particularly like the 3rd and last images.

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    1. Thanks Bob. Iv'e waited quite a while to get some in flight Emperor shots like these.

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  2. I agree with Bobs Selection.
    John.

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  3. Such a pleasure to view your images. I vote for the third and the next-to-last. ;-)

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    1. Many thanks Wilma. Having not had a decent flight shot of this species, I think I hit the jackpot with this set.

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  4. Replies
    1. Many thanks Roy. Don't think I will improve on these....... but I may try again!!

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  5. How do you do that, fantastic images Marc.

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    1. Thanks Bob, with a lot of patience, lots of shots taken and the all important bit of luck is the answer.

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