Dazzling Damsels and Dragons 2019

This thread is for anything to do with Damselflies, Dragonflies and Demoiselles. Anyone is welcome to post in it.

The 2018 thread is HERE



  • all from same place I walk the dogs and from this year alone, there are more but gives a good enough idea of how species dense it is....

  • A lovely set with some great detail Andy
  • cheers, lucky to live 5 mins from a little oasis of nature in the middle of north manchester...

  • One of my photographic objectives this year was to get some proper dragon in-flight shots. While I've had a little success with pairs of Darters and even a Chaser, it was the Hawkers that I was really after. Unfortunately, it's not been a great dragonfly year, but right at the end the Hawkers have started to play ball. Last Saturday, when it was sunny and warm, I saw a Hawker going round and round a small pool in the local gravel pits, so I sat down and had a go. I didn't think I'd done that well at the time, but I actually came away with more than I thought.

    It wasn't in least bothered by me, so I could get away with using the macro lens and teleconverter (although some may have been done with a 70-200mm)

    Apart from when another popped up and had to be escorted away, it just kept going round and round, giving endless opportunities.

    It's one of the commonest, locally, a Southern Hawker

    I was even mistaken for a perch myself - a Darter chose to rest on my boot while I sat there photographing its larger cousin

    This is the Hawker you want to find, one who doesn't get bored of going round and round the same circuit so you know where it's going to appear next!

    It got ridiculous though: every time I lost track of it in the view finder, I'd look up to find it literally six inches away practically peering into the lens hood. It was fascinated by the dark hole! I had to wait for it to back off a little because I just couldn't keep up with its movements when it so close, but it gave some excellent head-on shots.

    Then I got lucky ...

    I actually caught it when it was peering into the lens hood! That has been converted to 16x9 format (as I like landscape format to fill the screen), but is otherwise uncropped. I think I'll settle for that for a Dragon in-flight shot! I suspect I could try for years and not end up with a similar one. In fact, I'd be lucky to get that close to a Hawker when it was perched up!

  • Superb set Nige, they say patience is a virtue... you must be very virtuous!!
  • Unknown said:

    One of my photographic objectives this year was to get some proper dragon in-flight shots. While I've had a little success with pairs of Darters and even a Chaser, it was the Hawkers that I was really after. Unfortunately, it's not been a great dragonfly year, but right at the end the Hawkers have started to play ball. Last Saturday, when it was sunny and warm, I saw a Hawker going round and round a small pool in the local gravel pits, so I sat down and had a go. I didn't think I'd done that well at the time, but I actually came away with more than I thought.

    You've done well, those are fabulous photos, they're not easy to photograph in flight.

    This summer I had the same objective, which is one reason why I made the camera upgrade from 750D to 5D.

    I'm curious what camera setting you used, I'll have a nosey on your Flickr page.

  • andy carson said:

    Superb photos Andy, and the detail in the first one is awesome.

  • cheers Mike, had some luck they were about for a while and were laying eggs on the jetty....