As soon as I approached the first pond I saw hawkers and copulating black darters on the wing, and a few emerald damsels in the rushes. They were all rather difficult to pin down. I tried a few fungus shots but really needed a tripod and gave up. Wandering around I tried some spider shots that I was too idle to put the flash on for. While I was doing this I hard a rustle of dragonfly wings and expected it to be a common hawker nearby, so the light insect that settled on my right hand I assumed to be afly of some sort. When I looked it turned out to be a male black darter, and it wasn't for moving either!
As usual I disturbed hawkers, commons in the marginal rushes and the surrounding heather. When I saw one settle it would fly off before I got close enough for a shot. It was quite sad to see a pair of black darters wasting their time laying eggs in a puddle on the path. That's nature for you though.
Hearing a whirring in the margins I crept as stealthily as I could towards it. A common hawker flew away but three emerald damsels remained. One male clasping another that was clasping a female in a wheel. I saw this earlier in the year with banded demoiselles.
At the smaller pond there were plenty of black darters in the air, some paired up, and some paired hawkers that I couldn't get an ID on. With the sun shining brightly it was warm enough to strip down to the t-shirt. As soon as the sun went in it was cool enough to require the replacing of the fleece. Then it rained. Heavily. I took shelter in the wood where I took a lazy pohoto of a fungus of some sort. Lazy because I used the in-camera flash. It turned out quite reasonable considering.
It was a passing shower and I was back out again. It continued to prove difficult to get any decent dragonfly photos. A pair of hawkers settle on a vertical rock face, but my stalking skills let me down. I tried some less flighty subjects. Lichen are really fascinatingly shaped creations when you look closely. Static they may be, but they're still tricky to photogtraph. Practice is required, and probably a tripod.
There were a fair few grashoppers around, and they were quite approachable. Not always hopping off when I prodded them. I assume the rain had cooled them down a bit. They can be kind of cute! More time should have been spent with them in retrospect.
Another shower passed over as I was taking a walk away from the quarry. Only a light and brief one. Then it came warmer than ever. A final look around the ponds revealed nothing that I managed to capture with the camera. A couple of hawkers, possibly migrants, patrolled the large pond and clashed, wheeling away together noisily over the heather clad slops around the pool.
Rather than brave the bull I took the longer route down the hill, then had a wander round the overflow from the reservoir, and along it's banks. By the time that was done I was about beat - and hungry. Interesting though, as I think I found a spot roe deer might frequent. It's close to a place I stumbled across a small herd in the pre-dawn darkness when fishing one time. It's a fly infested bog though!
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