Damsel

Copera marginipes

Humungous response to yesterday's rain blip, and there was me thinking that I may have made a bad decision. I made the switch because it was more in keeping with the current flooding situation here, albeit a bit on the light hearted side. The image was snapped right outside my house which is on a hill and still the flood water spanned the road, with small boulders the size of house bricks rolling along.

The people of Indonesia are very acquainted with disaster, from bone shaking earthquakes to fiery volcanic eruptions, all taken in their stride. Indonesians are nothing if not resilient and the inconvenience of a bit of flood water will be taken in their stride. They have a pulling together attitude not unlike that of the British and Americans in the face of adversity.

This beautiful damsel fly is not uncommon. I see it daily on my early morning safaris and daily I take a dozen or more snaps and daily I process them and throw them in the bin! It is so difficult to get a really good image because of the length of the abdomen, it always seems to fall outside the focal plane. If it was a rare photo opportunity then I could live with the fuzzy tail, but being a daily opportunity, I feel the need to get it right.

An interesting damsel to study, as it slowly hovers close to the ground, almost in slow motion. A very successful hunter, rarely failing to capture its prey with a very short dash forward of a couple of inches to pluck the doomed fly from the air.

Before it lands, it tests the site with a couple of vigorous plucks at the stem and then thumps home rather than alighting with the delicate grace that it is obviously capable of. A very accomplished flyer with excellent sight. Although it lives amongst a forest of spider webs, I don't recall ever seeing this damsel in the jaws of an arachnid unlike some of the other species of damsel.

I finally managed to achieve a black background to enhance this stunning creature, in the poor lighting of this cloudy morning. Perhaps an inch or two higher angle next time, to avoid the flash glare reflecting off the wings - lesson learned.

Dave