Some More from Pittswood

During yesterdays visit to Pittswood, Warren found a quite showy female Beautiful Demoiselle in the woods. Although the sun was shining through the trees, it was quite a tricky subject to get right with the light, my attempts not being much at all as well as the Demoiselle being very wary to approach. I shall hopefully have another go in a few weeks time when there are more around. 

Female Beautiful Demoiselle

Male Beautiful Demoiselle

Whilst also taking my fair share of stinging nettle stings I come across a smart male Four spotted Chaser, my first of the year and I took a few distant efforts while Warren stalked it from close range.

Male Four spotted Chaser

As I seemingly get used to photographing the dragonflies I am becoming more aware of how important the background needs to be in the shots. Beforehand I was just happy to get a shot but I have found myself in the past few sessions starting to think more about this. Ideally a nice clean background without sticks, branches and leaves is what I would generally like making the subject stand out but sometimes its not that easy as some of my shots demonstrate. Its a good learning curve and one of many things which makes photographing dragonflies so appealing. I'm hoping maybe during the week, possibly the end of it looking at the forecast to make a visit to Sissinghurst to see and maybe photograph some Downy Emeralds in flight. They rarely land whenever I have seen them so this will prove to be a good challenge to take up, I just hope the weather gives me the chance. Also on the agenda is to see whether any Norfolk Hawkers emerge at Westbere Lakes. They are flying in Norfolk so fingers crossed they may emerge soon here.

Male Four spotted Chaser