www.ukbutterflies.co.uk

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

Great shot Eccles! Got to find those myself soon

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.

Nice DIF eccle's

Male & Female Emperor.

#1 Male Hanging around


#2 Male


#3 Female Emperor ovipositing

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

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!

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

Gruditch

I Found this Dragonfly Exuvia down in the forest yesterday.

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

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

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.

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.

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



Guy

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

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!!

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.

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.

Oooh. Nice. And upside-down

Cheers,

- Pete

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



Trev

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.