Walking by myself one day I came upon a small pond surrounded by Gorse bushes and trees that was full of vegetation and was home to quite a few damselflies so I decided to return on a bright day with my macro lens to photograph them. On a sunny afternoon I made my way back to the pond and was greeted by the sight of hundreds of insects flying around in the still conditions the most spectacular of which were the damselflies. There were two species of damselfly on the wing and the first here is the Large Red Damselfly which is found widely across the country and can vary in colour of which a couple of examples are shown. Above is a red and gold individual and below the more usual red colouration complete with red eyes.
The other species found was the Common Blue which is another found all over the country and which varies in colour. The two examples shown below are firstly a gorgeous blue male and secondly a greyer female although these colours are not exclusive to sex.
Among the other insects flying around were many Scorpion flies which are menacing looking insects but are in fact harmless to us, the males in particular with their 'scorpion' like tails shown below look really vicious.
In the trees that surrounded the pond a multitude of birds flitted around no doubt feeding off the insects; these included Blackcap, Flycatchers, Wrens and Dunnocks as well as many Willow Warblers whose song was regularly heard. The picture below shows one of the Willow Warblers seen.
On the way back to the cottage on a grassy bank I spied a couple of butterflies chasing one another and on approaching closer I saw that they were Small Heath Butterflies which are found nationally but are in decline because of the loss of the fine leaved grass habitat on which they depend.
No comments:
Post a Comment