Well met

I was beating and sweeping tiny inverts out of their shelters this morning when this Southern Hawker flew right past my face, making me take a rapid step back and say "Waah!". I doubt that he'd intended to get quite so close, though Southern Hawkers have ferocious concentration, and seem able to treat a large human as though it's invisible when they're on the track of something else. But it was very windy, and strong as these big dragons are, he was clearly being buffeted around the top garden by the gale. Suddenly he dived into this philadelphus and grabbed one of the branches, but even then he struggled against the wind, and had to keep adjusting his grip to avoid being dislodged. The next time there was a brief lull he removed himself into one of the birch trees, which I'd have thought would be worse, but he must have been more comfortable there because he stayed for several minutes.

A short time later, while this male was still resting, I found a female Southern Hawker working the secret garden, and looking rather more in control - partly perhaps because it's a more sheltered area, but maybe also because she was bigger and heavier. And just after that, a Common Darter I was cautiously approaching with the camera nearly got eaten by a second male when she incautiously lifted from her perch right in front of him, but after a frenzied chase she escaped over the fence into our neighbour's garden while he went back to hunting flies in ours.

Tonight's second photo is one of my own small victims: a Cream-spot Ladybird that I beat from the Lawson cypress, and placed on a nearby rose so that I could photograph it. The ladybird, not unreasonably, retaliated by disappearing under a leaf, but I was able to turn the leaf one-handed and photograph it with the other, before leaving it to its own devices.