Happy

Finding that a free morning had coincided with the return of sunny weather, I whisked off down to Lower Moor in Wiltshire, in search of Downy Emeralds. To my intense satisfaction it turned out that there was a mass emergence taking place along the Cottage Lake boardwalk and in the reeds and grasses in the swampy area behind it, and for a while I hardly knew where best to point the camera. My expression must have pretty much mirrored the grin on the face of the emergent female in my main image (though I'd like to think that my moustache is a little neater than hers). 

My second photo is a shot along the back of the boardwalk handrail, and shows two of the four dragons which at that point were hanging drying there in a neatly spaced line. In leaning over to get the shot I had to be very careful not to dislodge the individuals, like my headline female, that had moved off their exuviae and climbed up to hang off the top edge of the rail. Over the course of about an hour I watched maybe twelve Downy Emeralds, as well as a handful of assorted damselflies, complete their emergences and make successful maiden flights up into the surrounding trees.

My second extra was taken in the pond field near the car park, within a few minutes of arriving at the reserve. I'd barely stepped through the gate when my first Downy of the day swept past, flew a few circuits around my head, and then gently settled on a bush a few feet away at a perfect height to be photographed. The thick waist says that this is another female, and her brown eyes tell that she's still immature: by the time she's ready to breed, they'll be bright green. 

Over the years I've had some extremely frustrating days at Lower Moor, when the dragons played hard to get, but today I had absolutely no complaints. In the space of a couple of hours my year list jumped from one species to five, and if I'd had more time I might have made it six, because an acquaintance told me he'd seen some Hairy Dragonflies on the other side of the lake. I'll be making another trip to Wiltshire very soon.