Yesterday, 28-08-10, was quite a sunny day here in southern UK, and in between gardening chores I captured some of the sights I saw. There were two mating pairs of Common Darters flying round the pond at the same time. I saw one pair laying eggs, which they do by flying still attached (male clasping the female's neck) and "dipping" the female's tail into the water in quite a quick motion. I tried to anticipate the dips with some success, using the 70-200/4L in manual focus, 1/2000 around f/8 and ISO1600, cleaned up by the almost magical noise reduction in Lightroom 3.
1. Here's one of the best - I had to try and minimise the distraction of the background clutter. It is a crop from the original shot.
2. A male Southern Hawker came and flew around for a while. I tried many shots at manual focus, which was a bit hit-and-miss, but when I hit, it made a very nice picture.
I also had a poke about with the MP-E65mm and found a few things.
3. A harvestman, one leg short of the full complement.
4. A leaf hopper I haven't so far been able to identify, up close at around 4X.
5. A plant hopper of the family Delphacidae.
6. And finally, a new one for me. I had previously posted an unidentified nymph that LordV informed me was a waxy lacewing nymph. I'd never even heard of them and they were not represented in the insects book I use, but I looked them up on the web. That prepared me for seeing an adult here. No idea what species, but it's one of these waxy lacewings.
