John & Maria's Photography Pages

The damselflies are out

Well, one damselfly at least.  That's the large red damselfly, Pyrrhosoma nymphula, a western Palearctic species usually the first to emerge in spring in the UK. And once emerged they're interested in two things: feeding and mating.

A quick trip down to the pond at Efford Marsh, one of many local nature reserves in Plymouth, found first a red male that had already taken a bite out of a small green weevil (nettle weevil perhaps?) and was obviously eying it up for another go...

...followed by a mating pair who graduated from the initial joining to the classic damselfly mating wheel.

All shots taken with the OM-1 and 100-400mm MKII, ISO 400 and wide open aperture.  I love the close focusing on the 100-400mm and the ability to smooth out the backgrounds due to the long focal lengths of this super telephoto lens.

I'm looking forward to getting more damsel and dragonfly shots once they start emerging as the weather warms up.  I got a few dragonfly in flight shots last year with the 40-150 f2.8 + 1.4x teleconverter but struggled for range over water.  Hopefully the extra reach will increase my opportunities.