Sounds a little like a flier for a rather dubious mud wrestling venue, much more edifying than that I can assure you.
I walk past this pond about once a month, twice this month, yesterday and Sunday. On Sunday I noticed some Nymphs. (I really have wracked my brains to find an alternative word Here). I sat for a while hoping for a sighting of some rare and exotic Dragon Fly but no luck, all I got for my pains was a nasty nip, vicious little devils they are. Yesterday being calm and sunny with a bit of cumulus I decided to wander that way again. On arrival the pond appeared closed, nothing at all going on. I rigged the tripod and took enough frames for the above panorama and a few HDR images, not that the contrast really warranted the effort of HDR processing.
STITCHED HDR
I was about to pack up when my eye caught a flash of blue in the reeds, focused searched and saw nothing, must have been a sprite, then two more, yes, yes, yes! Not Dragon flies but their cousins the Damsel fly. Not sure of the difference, for me if they park with their wings down they are Damsels, if vertical Dragons. Much the same as moths and butterflies.
For once I had the lens for the job a 50mm-200mm telephoto, that's equivalent to 100mm-400mm on a full frame camera. Never hand held this lens with any success before but banged the ISO up to 500 switched on image stabilisation, focus to manual, my auto focus doesn't stand a cat in hells chance with all those reeds about and started firing away.
The first two are, I suspect, Common Blue Damsel Flies they may be Coenagrions. The latter I'm not sure about, wasn't sure about the others either but until corrected will go for Large Red Damsel Fly. Life must have been easy for Darwin and his peers, wander about, look at stuff and call it what you like.
Having started this post with smutty innuendo, I'll fulfil some of your hopes with the last image. Here come next years.
I haven't a clue what you're talking about when you do the 'camera speak' but your photos are wonderful. Thanks for sharing.
ReplyDeleteThank you for looking, I'm glad you enjoyed the pictures. Ignore the camera speak that's just to frighten the natives, cheers Adrian.
ReplyDeleteYes, it's a Large Red Damselfly. Pretty good for manual focusing - takes me back to the 'good old days'. As a general rule the wings down the back are a fair guide to damselflies but there are a couple of exceptions, like the Emerald Damselfly, just to be awkward.
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