Battle of Britain

It was like ' The Battle of Britain' over one of our local ponds today with three male Emperor and four male Broad Bodied Chaser all competing in aerial combat for the mating rights of the pond,  I was really out for more Cuckoo shots but the display that these dragonflies were producing was quite compelling to watch,  Inevitably we ended up with a casualty as one of the Emperors crashed into the water and seemed unable to recover,  I took several shots of it trying to drag its sodden wings out of the water for nearly an hour but it was all to no avail,  Off came my shoes and socks and up went my jeans before I waded into the warm water with mud and who knows what oozing up through my toes,  I rescued the drowning Dragonfly with a piece of floating willow branch and placed it on top of a gorse bush to warm up and dry out in the afternoon sunshine,  Half an hour later it flew off to re-join the battle for the right to mate with the ponds female dragonflies

Dragonfly on rescue stick by Peter Tonkin

The sound of a Cuckoo calling then gained our attention and the next couple of hours produced a few interesting images,