Making out while the sun shines

A perfect October day for walking. I was out for almost 5 hours. One of my favourite long walks which takes in fields, woodland, river valley and mountain moorland. It was a balmy day of fruit and fungi, butterflies and bees, a bowl of blue above with cotton wool clouds floating lazily off the horizon. Ponies basked and and ravens croaked
I was lucky to spot these damselflies [correction: dragonflies] united in their peculiar embrace. The male, above, holds the female's head with special claspers at the tip of his abdomen  while she brings her abdomen up to receive sperm from where he has transferred it from his primary to his secondary genitalia higher up his body. The gymnastics required creates the typical wheel or heart shape such as can be seen here and here. See also this  brilliant recent image by MsQuizzical2. There's a lot of it about! 
The female will deposit her eggs into water plants where the larvae will develop over the next couple of years.Meanwhile, their reproductive task done, these two will fall victim to the changing weather or a hungry bird.

The extras show the place I spotted them and some happy horses higher up.