Emerging Miracles

With some decent sun forecast and light winds I thought I would spend a few hours south of Reculver looking for dragonflies. I arrived about 7am where the sun was trying to break through and walking through the long grass I saw a number of Common Blue and Blue tailed Damselflies. I wanted to see if I could find any dragonflies emerging from the gravel pit so I spent quite a bit of time scanning the vegetation low down. I found quite a few damselfly exuvia and after some searching I at last found a dragonfly emerging. It had already come out of its larval case and was starting to dry out. It was nice to see it was my first Common Darter of the year and I set about trying to capture a few images of the process. The sun was not completely out and I would have liked a bit more light on the dragonfly but I stayed with it for over an hour where the wings dried out and it began to open them.

Common Darter with Exuvia

Common Darter

Teneral Female Common Darter 

Teneral Female Common Darter

Eventually the colours started to appear more, while this was happening I become aware of some movement to my left and a quick look revealed a Black tailed Skimmer which had just come out of its larval case. Again I spent some time just watching this miracle happen and captured a few shots. I don't think I moved more than 2 metres for a couple of hours. All the time around me were lots of Common Blue and Blue tailed Damselflies and I also saw 1 immature Black tailed Skimmer.

Black tailed Skimmer

A look through the reeds here produced a lovely complete Emperor Dragonfly exuvia and along with this I also collected the Black tailed Skimmer and Common Darter exuvia. I shall post some photos of the Emperor Dragonfly exuvian in the next few days, its quite impressive! With a few shots I left them in peace to hopefully make their maiden flights and popped into East Blean Woods for 30 minutes where I met Dave Barnes. No sign of the Norfolk Hawker but I did see 1 Hairy Dragonfly. I soon returned home only to go out again not long after where some Red Kites were moving through. I managed in an hour to see 8 Red Kites, 1 over my garden in Broomfield and 7 at Reculver. Not a bad session at all and most impressed watching the dragonflies emerging, its another world and lots to learn again. Back to work tomorrow :( but I shall post a few shots in the week of the dragonfly exuvia collected.