Brogborough Lake – Abundant Insects

It was seriously hot, and impossible to work inside without air conditioning, or even a fan, so in the afternoon I took myself off to Brogborough Lake, expressly to try to capture Dragonflies, in flight – it was not to be, despite numerous failed attempts as they were out in great numbers, and from my untutored observations, they were mainly seeking mating partners, and few seemed to bother to hover, speed and interaction seemed the order of the day – some would have repeat patterns of flight, but these loops would vary in height, so there was no easy way to synchronise my panning. I settled for spotting those that took a break from flying and settled on reeds or the foreshore.

Two men took to the water with paddles, one of those with a young son aboard for the trip. The water was generally still and very clear and in the narrow channels between discarded bricks and paving stones streams of small fish darted by first in one direction then turn about and back in the other, and despite not using a polariser I was able to capture this activity with comparative ease.

Damselflies also abound here, but I was less interested in them than their larger cousins, and there seemed to be two discrete sizes, the larger being slightly less in number. There were a few butterflies, but they rarely settled for more than half a second, and the few bees that were around also spent very brief spells on any one flower.

I initially used the 100mm Canon Macro on the 7D MkII, but soon swapped to the 300mm with 1.4 Converter, and both were well-suited for what I intended, but I think an earlier visit would prove more fruitful as with the afternoon heat these dragonflies had abundant energy to keep flying, rarely settling for longer than a few seconds. Just before leaving a small breeze came for a minute or so, and I just stopped and let it waft by as I stood with arms stretched to attempt to dry out. One of the nearby preening swans seemingly felt the selfsame urge; one or other had discarded a pristine feather which had two water droplets and was also moved by the small zephyr, so I took a couple of shots in case they might one day be used in a card.