Not Lepidoptera (dragons!)

[eccles]

Another common blue male from South Wales, freezing its tail off in a stiff breeze.

[Dave McCormick]

Great shot Eccles! Got to find those myself soon

[eccles]

Thanks Dave. Pretty little damselflies aren't they?
Here's an emperor - the other sort, snapped on the 24th June at Priddy Mineries in Somerset.

[xmilehigh]

Nice DIF eccle's

Male & Female Emperor.

#1 Male Hanging around


#2 Male


#3 Female Emperor ovipositing

[Shirley Roulston]

Seeing as these creatures are not that big, these are wonderful photos Eccles and Jerry.
Shirley

[eccles]

Thanks Shirley. Odd as it may seem, it takes more patience to get a static emperor than an in-flight one. Males especially hardly ever settle and when they do they're incredibly skittish whereas with the in-flights you just waste a lot of shots. So, nice one Jerry!

[Gruditch]

Golden ringed Dragonfly, seen today at Bentley Wood, in exactly the same place as I saw one last year.

Gruditch

[Gwenhwyfar]

I Found this Dragonfly Exuvia down in the forest yesterday.

[eccles]

Good catch, Gary. If you can find it again on Friday, you'll make Jerry's day.

[eccles]

Female black darter at Priddy Mineries, Somerset, yesterday (1st July).

[rezamink]

Hi GsButterfles

Hi All,

I'm new to Dragon's and would like to ask for a little help / confirmation on a couple of Damselfly's ID'S both images where taken on 16th June in the New Forest.

No: 1, Emerald Damselfly ~ female

The damsel is actually a Teneral Male Red Eyed damselfly (Erythromma Najas), the give away is a) The short incomplete antehumeral stripe b) The shape of the male anal appendages.

[hammer]

A visit to Crowle Moor NR in North Lincs produced a common hawker, several southern hawkers ,common darter, ruddy darter and four spot chaser.

Colin.

[Padfield]

Not taken in the UK, but I was pleased with this mug shot of a white-faced darter, photographed today:



Guy

[eccles]

Nice one Guy.
I snapped this male southern hawker yesterday at Willsbridge Mill near Bristol.

[Malcolm Farrow]

Some really lovely work here, makes me wish we had a UK Butterflies equivalent for dragons and damsels! I love the Downy Emerald photo Xmilehigh. I grew up in Sussex so they're a familiar species and I really miss not having a chance to photograph them now I live in Suffolk. Great flight shot of Emperor and Downy Emerald, Eccles - what camera lens/settings did you use?

Anyway, attached a few of my recent shots. Seem to have done better with dragons than butterflies this year.

Keep 'em coming!!

[eccles]

Great flight shot of Emperor and Downy Emerald, Eccles - what camera lens/settings did you use?

Thanks Malcolm, nice ones yourself too.
I used a 70-400 zoom at 400mm on my A700. Focussing was really frustrating. The full travel of the lens is quite high which is great for getting semi-macro images but it's slow if it misses first time, cycling right through the range and back before locking on, by which time the insect has long gone. If I used the focus limiter to speed things up the damned dragonfly would insist on turning up under my nose inside the set range. In the end I followed Xmilehigh's example and used manual focussing which worked better. The downy was at f5.6 1/500s and the emperor was at f6.3 1/640s, both shot aperture priority iso200.

[eccles]

I got close to this southern hawker yesterday afternoon at Willsbridge. I used a Minolta series 1 100mm f2.8 macro on Sony A700. 1/125 F11 iso400, hand held, AF set to continuous, onboard flash used.

[Pete Eeles]

Oooh. Nice. And upside-down

Cheers,

- Pete

[Trev Sawyer]

Not the sharpest of photos, but is this a Black Darter or a Downy Emerald?



Trev

[eccles]

A male black darter I reckon, but you'd be in no mistake in the field as BDs are tiny; noticeably smaller than common darter. Downy emeralds are larger, similar in size to a skimmer, and have brilliant green eyes.