Late August – Mainly Dragonflies

I had short visits to Marston Moretaine, Brogborough and Marsworth but have combined all the images into a single gallery as overall I was disappointed for several reasons, in part due to timing, part through poor planning and also because I felt I had not done justice to the subjects. I was pleased ultimately by managing to finally succeed to capture some of the dragonflies in flight, but it made me admire those with infinite patience and greater skill than myself.

The park at Marston Moretaine was fairly busy with young families with both the very  young and the children of school age coming to the end of their summer holidays, so the air was full of their high spirited sounds, but also the subtler tones of walkers deep in conversation several with their dogs in close attendance. I chose to delve into areas less-frequented braving hawthorn bushes to reach the shoreline of the reservoir in the hope of finding dragonflies circling the reed beds, as in the past they had been present in large numbers, but on this occasion they were conspicuous by the paucity in their numbers. In contrast there were numerous butterflies; blues in the main, and some which were minuscule in size, the one in particular I managed to capture because it was less flighty I was hoping I might show its scale by bringing my fingernail alongside, because its wings when closed were no larger than my index finger’s nail.

I returned to base via Brogborough, but there was little wind and fewer surfers. My later visit to Marsworth was primarily in hope that I might catch sight of kingfishers, but as on so many occasions, the subjects this time were dragonflies in abundance, which meant a possibly greater challenge, though with not quite the same reward, but here I was not alone as on my way I came across Merv, who had the same hopes as myself, but the portent was not good as we found another somewhat dispirited photographer who had been an hour already with no sign of a kingfisher. He can feel consoled that we remained there for more than four hours with just two fleeting visits, but neither of us were able to get any shots!

But during our stay we were visited briefly by what we suspected was a Sparrowhawk seemingly fishing! Also a Robin, a Yellow Wagtail and lastly a Blue tit. Obviously there were numerous pigeons and also a pair of female Mallards, so we contented ourselves honing our skills trying to get shots of dragonflies in flight, but they knew us well as they hovered only fractionally shorter than the time it takes to focus, or they visit us far more closely, knowing full well that our long lenses have no chance of capturing them when they are two foot away – so they obligingly hover at that distance, for four or five seconds!

I am convinced that all wildlife is trained by camera and lens manufacturers to recognise our kit and tantalise accordingly.