Light blue dragonfly

Today I went for a ride, to see if I could find a way down to the stream. I did succeed, I found a bridge and a path on the far side. I walked the path, but after about 30 meters the path had collapsed, leaving about a foot of soft soil path on the edge of a very nasty drop. I am sure the path would lead down to the edge of the stream and produce some blips, but even my blip instincts were not strong enough to drive me on any further. I'll find another route, maybe further upstream, away from the suburbs.

I returned to the grove to see what was presenting today. The sky was overcast and the air was heavy with dragons, as many as twenty flying around. I decided to try something different and attempt to capture a dragon in flight. Sat on my stool, I set the smallest aperture for maximum depth of field, pre-focused on a bush, closed the eyepiece shutter and shot from the hip at the dragons that came close. I also readjusted for anything else that presented around me.

A few dragons landed around me, but only this one was new, it had a light blue coloration, that I had not seen before. I only managed one shot of this dragon, before it got spooked and departed. It would have been nice to get in closer, but there is enough here to blip. I had noticed that the front legs were in attack mode, something that I learned yesterday, so it was obvious that it was not going to stay for more than a few seconds. I will have to investigate this front leg posture more.

With the blue dragon backup and a hundred or so shots of dragons in flight, I headed back to the lab. All I can say is saved by the backup, the in-flight shots were a disaster. I had one half decent shot, but even that was badly out of focus, the rest were just a blurry mess. Still, lessons were learned. I think in flight shots are going to have to be flash, to freeze the action, otherwise hand held is not going to work.

Identification - Orthetrum glaucum (Brauer, 1865)

Dave