Cragside

A few days ago, my wife and I went up to Cragside in Northumberland not to visit the house but to find Dragonflies. Slipper Lake was our destination and Black Darter my target, I have never seen as many. My wife sat patiently for a few hours as I filled my boots with not only Black Darter but also Common Hawker Dragonflies. There were also loads of Emerald Damselflies around the margins of the lake. At one point, my wife gave me a shout “what’s that brown thing flying around” it was a bat. I managed to get a couple of rubbish shots before it flew off. It was a cracking day out (at least it was for me).

Male Black Darter

Female Black Darter

In tandem

Mating Wheel

I saw this Hawker drop into the reeds, it caught something and flew up into the trees

I followed it and realised what it had caught.

I don’t know how it happened but the Hawker has both an Emerald and a Black Darter to feed on

Common Hawker mating wheel this was the best I could get

Egg laying

She was laying eggs in a few different places

I had to try for flight shots

Emerald Damselfly

In tandem

I thought trying to get flight shots of Dragonflies was difficult trying to get flight shots of a bat is even harder

It’s a pity the only half decent shots I got was when it went behind a bush

 

A Lang Blog

Our summer season finishes this weekend so I thought I would look back at some of the images I have taken during that time. I will be amazed if anyone gets to the end of it, as there are quite a few images. I have started with one taken yesterday but they go back to June, here goes.

Green Woodpecker. I have not seen one for months then this male appeared yesterday. It was disturbed while feeding by someone who I have never seen before and should not have been there in the first place, I could not believe it.

Goldcrest. Quite a few around in the past week.

I don’t have a clue what is going on here. It looks like a couple of Slugs are entwined around some sort of slime, any ideas.

I managed to get close to this young pigeon.

This Wren was sunbathing on a leaf…

…and while it was sunbathing, it was catching flies.

Warbler.

Swallow

Swallow

I though at first this Dragonfly was a female Black Darter now I think it is just an old female Common Darter.

Common Marbled Carpet Moth

I watched this spider wrap up a Crane-fly from the time it was first trapped in the web until it hid it away.

Large White Butterfly

Small Copper Butterfly. I have seen quite a few of these at work this year.

Silver Y moth first I have seen at work.

Grasshopper

These whites look like aeroplanes stacked waiting to come in to land.

A Mining Bee?

Female Common Darter. After a slow start loads of Darters were seen but there were very few of any other species.

Swallow

We have some bats at work and as you can see this one was on the ground. I only took one picture then put it back near to where it was supposed to be.

For some reason the Swallows had only one brood this year.

Bee

Common Blue Butterfly. Again quite a few this year.

Common Blue

Whitethroat nested this year near the pit heap.

Hoverfly

Crane-fly? and Spider

Mating Dingy Skipper

Hoverfly