I was drawn to this area by seeing a freshly-emerged common darter dragonfly (Sympetrum striolatum) flying up to the bushes. Their first flight is quite distinctive. Then I saw this sad (for the dragonfly) scene where an immature male common darter had got caught in the web of a female garden spider (Araneus diadematus). I had the MP-E65 on the camera so had to quickly get the 100mm macro before capturing any of the action.
At first even though she had tried to subdue it, the dragonfly continued to flap its wings for a while, so the spider had to work to contain the wings. Eventually she wrapped it some more, then, having made it secure, cut it from the web and carried it to her hide to enjoy away from the wind, which had made the earlier operation quite difficult.
All shots taken with the 100mm macro on 40D with off-camera diffused flash from a 430EXII.
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I had started to wonder if I might want to upgrade to the 100L, but seeing the sharpness of the full versions of these shots, I'm perfectly happy with what I've got.
