Female Emperor Dragonfly

In my last blog I showed the outcome of a territorial dispute between two Male Emperor Dragonflies which resulted in a new male taking over the windmill farm pond.

All visiting female Emperor such as the one below will now readily mate with the new Emperor and lay their eggs in his pond.

Having mated this female attempts a tricky  ' Log rolling'  method of laying her eggs on a piece of floating reed.

She finally becomes balanced but decides to moves on to more stable growing reeds where she can lower herself into the water margins with better balance and control

I managed to capture a head-on close up portrait  before the female finishes laying her eggs and the last image below shows her departing to rest up before going through the whole cycle again later

My next blog will show a few more damselflies and chasers taken on what proved to be a very productive and pleasant way to spend a Monday afternoon at Windmill Farm