Damselflies and Chasers

The following portrait images were also taken along with the Emperor Dragonflies on Monday.


Narrow -winged Damselflies about to commence egg laying.

A pair of Common Blue Damselflies mating

Two male Common Blues perched on a reed.

Male Common Darter on Blackberries

A female Common Darter ditched in the pond following an in-flight mating crash

A male Broad-bodied Chaser warming up in the sunlight

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

A War Torn male Emperor Dragonfly.

I had just watched this male Emperor Dragonfly pictured above win yet another aerial territorial dispute at windmill farm wildlife trust.  He may have won this battle but not without its wings incurring damage as a result of this and several other aerial collisions.

Its rival however had far more damage and unable to maintain a controlled flight it landed in the water where it looked in danger of drowning.

A light wind came to its rescue flushing it towards the water margins where it climbed onto various grasses to gain some height to dry out but its wings were looking really tatty with fifty percent of one missing completely

When it did eventually try to fly it had no control and just flipped over so as with any species that relies on wings to survive it looked like his rival had taken him out.

There was little to nothing that I could do to help this otherwise fine and healthy looking dragonfly so I decided to take advantage and take some interesting close focus images for my records

When I had finished there was still no sign of it being able to control its flight so I moved it to some higher sunlit reeds and left it to take its chances but it looked like :                                                                                            
                                 This particular Emperor had just lost his Kingdom to another !

Cudden Point Sea Watch

It was a lovely warm and calm summer day here on the south coast of Cornwall yesterday and my wife and I decided to spend a leisurely day walking to Cudden Point with a flask and a packed lunch to do a little sea watching,

 Masses of butterfly were showing along our coastal route on our arrival we watched one of our local Kestrel hunting amid the heather while we were being checked our by a rather sombre looking young male Grey seal that was patrolling the rocky outcrops along the coast looking for relaxing females.

Next up were several Compass Jellyfish gracefully turning at the calm surface water as the tide slowly moved them on along the coast

 I think the comings and goings of the local Cormorants presented the best attraction,  Often squabbling over favoured rock island perch points, classic wing drying poses and perhaps best of all watching them surface dive for fish in the clear waters along the shoreline rocky gullies.

As we were leaving one of the fine Red Sail boats from Newlyn breezed through close to the point to end what had been a very pleasant and relaxed way to spend a happy day on just one of many Cornwalls classic headlands !!

Female Southern Hawker at the Millpool

Although common throughout Europe this female Southern Hawker is the only one that I have seen in West Cornwall so far this summer,

These 110mm long Dragonfly tend to inhabit small ponds such as the Millpool between May to November,

The females like the one shown here are often inconspicuous around green waterside vegetation and in this case hard to spot while laying its eggs in damp green moss covered stones in a shaded area at the waterside,

The eggs hatch the following Spring and the nymphs will feed on aquatic insects , small tadpoles and even ambush small fish for a two to three year period prior the emerging as adults completing their  cycle

Fox's Midday Siesta

A  few days ago I came across this vixen resting up at one of her favourite clearings and the above incredible  'Yawn '  image was the highlight of that encounter,

At first I could see this vixen lying at her clearing from quite a distance but true to Fox form she had already seen me first but she held her ground and watched my slow progress towards her,

I stopped moving forwards and set myself up in a Buddliea bush for cover when I was around twenty five to thirty metres from the vixen and after five to ten minutes she started to relax and snooze but still managed to passed me the odd squinting glance,

It was at this stag that she started to yawn and she  was obviously finding my company quite boring !

This  'Yawn'  went on long enough for me to obtain several nice shots and ended up in the mammoth gape shown in the first image

With the vixen being so relaxed and plenty of images taken I decided to push things a little more by moving on to the next closer bush but it proved to be one step to far as our sleepy fox was not up for it and sloped off into close by undergrowth but with no harm done and she will be back out again as soon as I have departed,   End of Shoot !!

Peregrine Behaviour

While on an early AM visit to cliffs along the south coast of Cornwall where I had been watching the progress of this years fledgling Peregrine,  The adult female Peregrine returned to the cliffs just as they were exposed to the rising sun,

Several months ago I watched for my first time as a buzzard in this area spread its wings on a sun soaked rock ledge presumably to warm up in the morning sunshine and this is exactly what the Peregrine did on this occasion.

The Peregrine spread its wings and flattened its body down on to dead soft grasses that had died on the ledge due to the current drought conditions,

To an untrained eye this would probably look like a peregrine on a nest but this female is already well clear of raising her fledglings for this year and they do not use any nesting material anyway.

She stayed in this wing spread stance for upwards of thirty minutes before regaining her feet and flying off a few minutes later presumably now all warmed up to start her day.