Male Emperor Dragonflies in flight

Male Emperor Dragonflies have a busy life,  On sunny days or any day where the air temperature is over twenty degrees these brightly coloured dragonflies will spend very little time perched up,  If you wait to take images of them at rest you will probably give up with frustration long before they stop their long endurance flights.

These flights are spent in constant patrols of their territory battling ferociously with and driving off other Emperor males and looking out for female Emperors which they will mate with on the wing and as you can see by the ware and tear on the wings of this otherwise perfect male that at this rate of wing degradation this one will be lucky to make it to the end of the summer.

So perhaps flight shots are a better way forward with male Emperors and if like me you use long tele-photo lenses you then very soon start to realise that tracking a small compositional area and focusing on the dragonflies erratic flight patterns is also quite frustrating but it can be done and some of my results from today's efforts are posted below.