Staying in the shade

This shot is the matching bookend to yesterday's bookend. It wasn't planned and is pure luck, but I'm rather pleased at the way the two day's blips work together.

The heatwave is on its final day today, so things should start to get a bit cooler by tomorrow, which will be most welcome.  I ventured out into the garden earlier on, to find a blip, but everything seemed to be hunkered down in the shade trying to do as little as possible.  

Even this common darter (Sympetrum striolatum), preferred a perch in the shade, which is not something I've particularly noticed them doing before.  You can see that he is the male, he is generally redder than the female (see yesterday's shot) and has those yellow patches on his thorax.

There's a little patch of shade under two trees in the garden, which is normally a pleasant place to sit when it gets hot.  But today it seems uncomfortably hot even there so I shall be spending the day indoors with all the windows and doors closed and the curtains drawn, buried in a good book, while moving as little as possible.  I may even resort to sticking my feet in a bowl of cold water :-)

Later: it clouded over mid afternoon, and I wandered back out into the garden to see how warm it still was.  To my surprise it began to rain shortly after I stepped outside - so I spent a very happy 30 minutes standing in it, without the benefit of a coat or umbrella. I was delightfully chilled by the time it stopped, if a little soggy.