Wednesday 30 May 2018

Heading north

During the return trip to Orkney, my calculations reckoned that there was an hour free to fritter away on some wildlife watching, as one of our rest halts on the journey. We decided to visit Insh Marshes, an RSPB reserve not far from Kingussie, as it was conveniently near to the A9 and held the potential for dragons.

Indeed, as we sat at a viewpoint, munching our sandwiches and listening to bird song, a Four-spotted Chaser flew over our heads and a couple of Large Red Damselflies could be seen in the vegetation.

To stretch our legs, we walked to one of the hides, which was down a narrow path which wound through a small valley. Fortuitously, this sheltered warm spot was absolutely chock full of Odonata. We didn't have enough pairs of eyes to follow all the action, but the time flew by as we marvelled at more Four-spotted Chasers, plus Large Red, Northern and Common Blue Damselflies.

The view from the... er... viewpoint

Large Red Damselfly

Four-spotted Chaser

Northern Damselfly

Northerns in cop

An immature Common Blue Damselfly

All too soon the hour was gone and we had to tear ourselves away and continue the journey. Happily, we will be having a week's holiday not too far from here a bit later in the year.

6 comments:

Mark said...

Welcome to Odanata season Mr Tense. Judging by your photos you must have a flippin awesome camera.Regards, Marky Mark.

Imperfect and Tense said...

Oh, Mark, I was in seventh heaven. And when there's an abundance of subject matter, good light and shelter from the breeze, the photography is a bit easier. I use a 300mm prime lens, which will focus down to 1.5m, and this in theory allows me to fill the frame with a dragonfly. That said, the photos here are all cropped from larger images.

Spadger said...

Great stuff and I bet you can't wait to get back there soon

Imperfect and Tense said...

Oo, I think we may just pop in again!

GretchenJoanna said...

I don't think I have ever seen a damselfly in real life. We do have some dragonflies in my area. Do you also have the dragons? Your photos are lovely...

Imperfect and Tense said...

Hi GJ, chances are, if you can see dragonflies, there's probably damselflies in the area too. The damsels are generally smaller (matchstick-sized) so can easily be hidden by a blade of grass!