Darting around...

Despite the glorious sunshine, I was struggling to find much in the way of wildlife around the village of Crit today. So I decided to head down to the river to see if there were any frogs and toads still around. There were a few, but none of them wanted to pose for the Camera. My attention was soon drawn to a handful of Common Darters (I think that's what they are??)

They were pretty hard to keep in the camera lens - as their name suggest they are very mobile and agile! But with a lot of patience I managed to fire off a couple of photos which I'm over the moon with!!

The two photos above show the pair in the position known as 'Tandem Linkage'. It's a way for the male to keep a hold of 'his' female while they're looking for places to lay the eggs. Dragonflies only live for a few weekss once they are out of their nymph stage, so not letting is quite important!! 

A much easier Darter to photograph!