Autumn Specials

With the weather feeling quite hot over the weekend, I thought I would spend a couple of hours yesterday looking to see what dragonflies and damselflies were still on the wing at Nethergong. With the trees and bushes starting to show the colours of autumn and leaves starting to fall, a few Common Darters were enjoying the sunshine on the floor and were quite hard to pick out unless you accidently flushed them. A single Southern Hawker was seen patrolling low through the trees. Migrant Hawkers were still around and enjoying the number of small flies on the wing but most of my attention was spent watching and photographing the Willow Emerald Damselflies which were still quite numerous, not that surprising really given the weather conditions of late. If the weather continues like this, they will happily make it into late November and maybe, early December. I found a few individuals which were posing nicely and showing off their autumnal colours and settled in to get a few images. What was a little more challenging was trying to either get a clear background or some autumn colours in the background. It was simply pleasant to sit in the warm sunshine really and just watch them go about their lives. It would be nice to think I can have a few more sessions with them this year before their time is over. 

Willow Emerald Damselfly (Chalcolestes viridis) - male