Emperors, Damsels and Babies

In my previous post I mentioned that I'd seen an emperor dragonfly. Today I saw four or five around the pond, which constitutes a mini population explosion. As ever, flight shots of these will take time, but they did settle on the vegetation at the edge of the pond which gave me some reasonable opportunities for photos.

Emperor dragonfly (male)

There were various damselflies out as well, including common blues and blue-tailed varieties. This is a female common blue.
Female common blue damselfly

Blue-tailed damselfly

Those were at lunchtime. In the morning, before work, I came across a small clutch of young squirrels out enjoying the early sunshine. They were moderately bold, though if I got too close quickly ran up into the trees.
Young grey squirrel

The other babies were the herring gull chicks (of course). Just one photo of them tonight.

And not forgetting the baby fox 😉
Nature Blog Network
Camera note: the dragonflies were all photographed with the Sigma 105mm F2.8 EX DG macro lens. The chicks and squirrel were caught with the EF 400mm f/5.6L USM lens.

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This Post Has 12 Comments

  1. gdare

    5 Jun 2009

    Emperor dragonfly on a second photo look unreal. Like from a SF movie 🙂
    Usual spring activity these days, right?

  2. cakkleberrylane

    5 Jun 2009

    Our dragonflies have just put in their first appearances too. Great shots you got! It's cute the way the baby fox sticks so close to mama!

  3. SittingFox

    5 Jun 2009

    Love the large-headed squirrel! Great dragonfly shots too 🙂

  4. Words

    6 Jun 2009

    Lois, we seem to be doing well with the dragonflies, though I'd love to see some darters. Maybe in a few weeks. And that cub is great, but I wish it would turn up a bit earlier in the evening. I keep missing it.

  5. Words

    6 Jun 2009

    Adele, I think that's the first young squirrel I've photographed. The dragonflies are perfect subjects on a hot day. I just spend the hour sitting by the pond watching them.

  6. Words

    6 Jun 2009

    Darko, yes this is the time of year for dragonflies here. And for once we have some sunshine as well.

  7. annoushkiss

    6 Jun 2009

    Our dragonflies have also appeared recently :yes: I've seen a couple of them but haven't got any opportunity to shoot yet.

    The squirrel is a cutie :flirt: Miss ours, don't know why but there are no squirrels in the forest since October. I wonder why..?

  8. Flying Red Fox Blog

    6 Jun 2009

    Brilliant Dragonfly shots :yes: Nice video of the Vixen and Cub with interesting music lol. 😛

  9. Words

    6 Jun 2009

    Anna, that's very strange that your squirrels have vanished. They should be quite active now. Maybe they'll be back in the autumn looking for food.

  10. Words

    6 Jun 2009

    Mark, thanks. I can't remember what the music is. I'm using the 'audioswap' function on YouTube. You can select by length of video, and I'm just using instrumental, classical and so on. It's weird how the mood of the video alters according to what soundtrack is added.

  11. Ukwildlife

    6 Jun 2009

    fantastic photos

  12. Words

    6 Jun 2009

    Thanks Neil!

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