Golden Dragon

Identification - Crocothemis servilia servilia (tentative).

A very good bug safari today. A fairly stiff breeze blowing and patchy sky, giving sunny spells. The sun brought plenty of butterflies out, but I only managed to collect images of a couple.

I even saw a couple of common blue jay butterflies, but couldn’t get near enough for a shot. I would like to meet the guy that named this stunning creature and poke my monopod in his eye. Common! In two years of BUGerring about, I haven’t got a single image of the blue jay.

I collected images of eleven different subjects, two of which never made it through processing. I am loving how fast I can get through the processing on this new computer. What used to take me two or three hours, I can get through in ten to fifteen minutes.

The final selection was three dragons and a wasp. I really should have blipped the wasp, as it was a new species for my collection, and a pretty good image too. Such a difficult decision between all four.

I am struggling, even after two years photographing these dragons, with the identification. This looks like a female of the above in coloration, but it does look like a male, with a dangly bit just behind the thorax.

A good day indeed.

Update - my bat image earned 'spot of the day' on project Noah website. This is the equivalent of 'staff pick'. This day just gets better :)

Dave