Blue boy

"What are you looking at?" said a voice next to me. "A Migrant Hawker," I replied, still leaning way out over the bridge rail and peering downwards through the camera viewfinder. But hearing him hiss, "What did she say?" at the person he was with, I took pity, pointed, and said, "A big blue dragonfly - see? There." "Oh yes!" was the response. "Wow!"

Wow indeed. Though they're smaller and more subtly patterned than the showy male Southern Hawker, I think male Migrant Hawkers are very handsome dragons. They're also much easier to photograph in flight, because they're less restless than Southern Hawkers and tend to hover in one place for longer, so I was doubly pleased to see this one today at Lucy's Mill in Stratford. I had a strong feeling when I arrived that there was a dragon around there somewhere, but he was on his own and it took me a while to find him, because his colouring and patterns made him hard to spot against the foliage. Eventually I got lucky when he moved out over the water and gave me a better view, and after that I quickly got my eye in and was able to track him around the reed beds. Having captured my boy in motion there was never any doubt that I'd be posting a flight shot this evening, but I do also like my second photo, which shows him taking a brief rest stop.

Finding and photographing a Migrant Hawker put the streusel topping on a pretty satisfying day. R and I have been prepping for a family visit tomorrow, which we're very much looking forward to, and this morning I finally managed to get my hair cut, three months after having to cancel my previous appointment due to circumstances. My visit to the salon went very much like this.

R: C4, D20.