Another dragon afternoon

Even though it's Sunday I went to the dragonfly pond. There was a woman and her dog already there taking photographs (that is to say the woman had a camera), but the dragonflies weren't flying. It was cooler than of late and dull, so it was a case of stalking them. There were a few damsels around, but I managed to put up a couple of common darters, one of which landed in view and I was able to creep up on it and get close enough to use the Raynox without spooking it. It was so unconcerned that I got bored before it flew off. In fact it didn't fly off until after the dog owner had managed to get some shots of it after I pointed it out to her.

After more wandering round I disturbed another darter. This one looked to be recently emerged, and one wing was either not going to fully unfurl or was still unfurling. As a result it was even more immobile than the first one, and I got even closer with the Raynox.

I went for a stroll through some unkempt grass and mixed herbage where I found a bee feasting on a thistle. I spent quite some time photographing the bee trying to get the perfect composition with the bee in just the right place on the flower. Only when I revied the photos at home did I realise, that like the darter macro, I'd left the ISO on auto instead of setting it manually and it was higher than it should have been. Oh, well...

Time was getting on and hunger was gnawing. I still called in at the litter pit, after a wander along a path by a nearby wood, and then into the wood where I got low down for a first attempt at fungi photography. The angled eyepiece is ideal for this. Given that fungi don't run or fly away I guess it's time to get the tripod out and slow the shutter down for future efforts. It's a start, but I should have done more 'gardening' to tidy the picture up.

At the litter pit craters there were as few dragonflies in evidence as at the dragonfly pond. The usual blue damsels and a couple of common darters were all I saw before the clouds darkened, rain threatened and the stomach rumbled.

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