Expansive

This female isn't the first Large Red Damselfly to emerge from our ponds this season, but she's the first I've caught in the act. By the time I saw her she'd reached the stage of rocking slightly back and forth, as she pumped haemolymph around her body to expand her wings and abdomen. It was a murky and slightly chilly morning, and I wondered how she'd get on with drying out and hardening, but in the event all turned out well. Shortly after I took this photo R and I had to go to Stratford, where he had a dental appointment, and while we were there the sky cleared, the sun emerged, and the temperature rose several degrees. By the time we arrived back home she'd completed her emergence and gone.

This afternoon all the inverts came out in the garden, to bask in the sunshine and browse the wild flowers in my No Mow May meadow lawn, and I rushed about, barely able to decide where to point the camera next. I ended the day with nearly five hundred images to cull and process, but in the end I found that I didn't like any of the later ones as much as this.

R: C1 D5.