New dragonfly…

I had a close encounter yesterday at my local nature reserve with one of our more splendid native dragonflies - the golden-ringed dragonfly.  These are big and bold dragonflies so they play firmly to my bias for wildlife.  Forget the ‘Africa safari Big 5’.  If you want to do a wildlife safari* in the UK, this easily comes into the top 5 of our big and spectacular predator class.  

Apparently, these are widely distributed in the UK but I don’t recall having seen many at this site before.  I suspect they are not so common here because, while this is heathland, I read that their larvae need small shallow moving streams to breed in.  Most of the water here is still and we only have one stream of this type in the area and about 400m from this meadow.   I’ve seen an odd few here in past years but not close enough to photograph so this time I was pleased to be able to get into position and grab a few shots as it landed on a stem for a few minutes before heading off hunting across the meadow.  

It will need to keep an eye out for the hobby I saw over this meadow a few days ago.  Dragonflies are a favourite prey item for those aerobatic falcons.

I’ve added this to the dragonfly gallery here

[* Always read the small print:  here that’s ‘mini-bug wildlife safari’.]

Nikon D500 with 300mm f/4E PF and Teleconverter TC-14e iii (i.e. 420mm).  Both exposures at 1/640s, f/8 and ISO 400.