Massacre

I spent a very happy three hours at Kemerton Lake today, where there was so much going on I hardly knew where best to point the camera. My aim had been to get some photos of dragonflies in flight, and I did pretty well with the Emperors and Common Darters, though the only Brown Hawker I saw evaded me completely, and my first Migrant Hawker of the season kept flying too close for the 100-500 to focus, and I only managed to catch it when it landed momentarily in the reeds. 

I'd also been hoping for a sight of the Lesser Emperor that was photographed at Kemerton a few days ago by my friend Paul, and I thought at one point that I'd spotted it, but I must have been mistaken because it didn't show up in any of my photos. My other major fail of the day was the Hobby that's currently attracting a lot of attention at the lake, which shot past the hide so fast that I didn't even have time to focus my eyes, let alone the camera. I realised what it must have been simply from the context, but a little while later someone who'd been watching from the hide on the other side of the lake confirmed that this was what I'd seen.

I was taking some record shots of Small Red-eyed Damselflies ovipositing en masse in the water weed in front of the hide, when a brood of young Mallards appeared and began cutting a swathe through them. Now, I like a cute fluffy duckling as much as the next person, and I know that everything has to eat, but I thought it was a bit unsporting of the Mallards to be targeting the damselflies while they were concentrating on laying their eggs. The male Small Red-eye in this shot would probably have got away if he'd released the female and got a wiggle on, but if this occurred to him at all, it was too late, and both of them paid the ultimate price for their inattention. 

Brutal as all of this was, I had to admire the duckling's technique, which was to stretch itself out with its chin resting on the water, take aim on a target, and then kick hard and surge forward - rather in the way a cat crouches, sights, and springs. This was much more effective than the technique being used by some of its siblings, who were paddling hither and yon, putting the damsels to flight and trying to snatch them out of the air.

I've put a small selection of my favourite photos of the day on my Facebook page, if you'd care to take a look.

R: C4, D16.