Amongst the bracken of yesterdays walk, which was around Bradgate Country Park, you could hear birds calling. This constant twittering would be shattered every now and then by the racket caused by a wood pigeon taking off or a crow coming noisily to investigate who knows what, but soon after the calling would begin again. It was most noticeable when I was up to my eyeballs in bracken. Looking around I could see several species of birds acting cooperatively as they kept their eyes on me and calling warning calls to the other birds. The bird above is a Yellowhammer (Emberiza citrinella). 
Joining the avian warning system was this Skylark (Alauda arvensis) above and a Male Reed Bunting (Emberiza schoeniclus). For several minutes I watched as they sang their warning, before moving to a different perch. Several times they would fly overhead to get a closer look at me and assess the danger.
Each of the several ponds had a dragonfly. One pond had two, but they fought with each other the whole time I was there. Obviously they are very territorial. I noticed that the upland environment seemed to favour one particular species. Basically all the ponds were colonised by the same species which is quite different to down in the Soar valley where different species live side by side. The one above is a Broad Bodied Chaser (Libellula depressa). As different to the Hawkers this dragonfly has a brightly coloured thick abdomen. Hence the name.
Away from the ponds I found this beautiful Common Darter (Sympetrum striolatum). This dragonfly is quite happy living without ponds and is commonly found in hedgerows etc. Being smaller than the Chaser it makes sense to find somewhere else to live rather than fight a creature twice your size for a space on a lily pad.
Dragonflies are hard to photograph. In the air they are just too quick. If you have a slow motion camera like I do, you still won't get far as the translucency of the object will make the camera focus past the creature. Yet, in spite of this difficulty I wanted to bring you pictures of these marvelous animals. I needed a strategy. The only picture I have ever taken of a dragonfly before is this one above of a Common Hawker (Aeshna juncea). Picture the scene, it is a hot August day deep in the forested valleys of Northumberland. Three human beings are following the course of a quite stream. The male of the group is slightly ahead and busy assessing the track and looking for navigational indicators, behind him a pair of female humans trudge confidently and noisily in the knowledge that they are not lost. Suddenly one of the females calls the male. The male bounds back and they all pause to observe an object in the grass. The dragonfly was resting. Whilst resting it seemed quite happy to be photographed.
So of course, the first thing that went through my mind is what would this huge thing look like through the bigascope. The first thing I had to decide was which bit to look at as it would not all fit in. So I went for the face.
