The morning after the night before

I was tired after running up and down the garden in the dark for an hour last night, photographing the emergence and eclosure of this female Southern Hawker, so I didn't wake especially early. Luckily, when I did manage to haul myself out of bed, throw on some clothes, and squelch off through the heavy dew (memo to self: time for some more mowing), she was still down at the pond. I liked the fact that while she was holding on to various sedge leaves with five of her claws, her left 'forearm' was casually (proprietorially?) thrown across the eye of her exuvia. I was also impressed that she'd managed to expand her wings successfully, without sustaining any damage from the crowded vegetation around her.

Delighted as I was to see that 'our' dragon had come through this difficult and dangerous life stage, and would now be able to take to the air and (with a bit more luck) breed and complete her life cycle, I doubt that she was remotely happy to see me. The reason hawker dragonflies tend to emerge overnight is that they're primed to do it secretly, when most of their potential predators are asleep, so that by daylight they're fully hardened and ready to fly away from danger. Having to emerge in the glare of our lights must have been stressful for her, which is why I turned them off and left as soon as she was fully eclosed, and seeing me again this morning can hardly have been welcome. I went back to the house for breakfast, and when I came back an hour later, she'd taken her maiden flight and disappeared.

H trekked down from the Frozen North to see us later in the day, and even though we missed the presence of the Cardiff contingent we had a lovely day with him. The poor lad had made the mistake of saying that he'd be very happy to tackle any little jobs we needed doing, but I'm not convinced that he had in mind moving most of the furniture in the master bedroom and deep cleaning it. That'll larn him: never volunteer without reading the small print first.

R: C3, D16.