Drop-in

Right place, right time.

We now seem to have lost all the female Common Darters we had here last week, but today the small pond received a visit from this mature male, and I happened to walk up the garden and onto the patio at exactly the right moment to catch sight of him skimming around the water mint. He seemed quite reactive, and I had a feeling that he might leave if I went too close, so I used the 300mm lens to capture this image. The macro would have done a better job, obviously, but not if I'd put him to flight and lost him: sometimes compromise is the best approach.

I suspect that having reached maturity, the little guy was touring all the ponds in the village in the hope of finding a mate, because he was at our house for less than ten minutes before disappearing, and despite checking the ponds at regular intervals I didn't see him again. I thought of walking round to the old village pond to see what dragons might be hanging out there, but discovered that in the current heat and humidity I didn't quite have the energy. With luck we'll get a few more dragony visitors to the garden before this hot spell comes to an end.