PRAENUBILA - stunning colour form

The Four-spotted Chaser in yesterday's post HERE was of the unusual colour form Praenubila; the first one of these I've seen, a rather stunning individual too. Here are a few shots of the more common colour form of Libellula Quadrimaculata, taken today:

A very close-up pic. The intricacy of dragonflies always amazes me!

And here's the difference between the two aforementioned colour forms. The first image shows the more common form and the second image shows the form Praenubila. Note the extended Pterostigma (dark patch towards the wing tip) on the lower pic!!!

Apologies for the sheen on the wings; it's a teneral dragonfly so there was no avoiding it - nice to see one so new and vibrant. The Pterostigma can also be significantly more extensive than the example above shows; sometimes the black can extend over almost all of the end of the wing! 

Fascinating creatures.

DRAGONFLIES at last!

Dragonflies are great! They're both fascinating to watch and challenging to photograph. With bird migration drawing to a close (there's been nothing of much interest new on patch for a while now), butterflies and dragonflies will be making a more regular appearance here for the next couple of months. Places like the Somerset Levels are enjoying literally thousands of dragonflies at the moment, but they've been difficult near the coast here. Today I finally found a couple - singles of Four-spotted Chaser and Scarce Chaser at Lower Bruckland Ponds:

New life

There's little to report from inland areas of the soggy patch lately, the main interest has been out to Sea; it seems as though most of the birds have moved through now. As you'd expect in mid-May, there are lots of young birds around and I couldn't resist taking a few snaps of a rather endearing Mute Swan family this afternoon:

The photo of the single adult bird was intentionally underexposed and then the shadows were pulled back to emphasise the contrast between the blacks & whites. No details/objects have been edited out of the original image.

Pelican and Vulture Twitching...

Here's a bit of a write-up to supplement the pics in the previous post regarding the Dalmatian Pelican in Cornwall. An offer of a lift to Cornwall presented itself (many thanks Brett Spencer) so obviously I accepted. We set off from Seaton at 02:50 (he must have left home at around 02:00) and headed to Drift Reservoir, as the bird had seemingly decided to roost there overnight. Arriving on site at 05:30 the Dalmatian Pelican was immediately visible through dense mist, asleep out on the water. It was very distant, but that's not really a concern when watching such an immense bird! We stayed there until the bird decided to fly 3 hours later; it was worth the chills - seeing what looks a bit like a boat on wings was bloody great. So everything went smoothly! Or so we thought.....

We headed home after eating a massive pasty, dipping on Bowhead Whale and another dip on Serin. The mood of the twitch suddenly changed when we were approaching Exeter and I checked my phone only to discover that the recent LAMMERGEIER was now in Devon! ARGH F%£*!!!!! It was funny really; just the night before I was talking to a friend saying that the Lammer would appear nearby after we'd seen the Pelican, but not for a second did I think there was any realistic chance of this. So after a quick stop to get petrol for the car and an unhealthy quantity of energy drink for Brett and myself, off we went. We approached from the direction that the bird was last seen heading in so this gave us a good chance of 'bumping into it' but alas no such luck. We then headed out on the moors to Avon Dam Reservoir in the hope that it was still in that rough area, but then heard news that the bird had been re-found further North. Typical! By this time we had walked a couple of miles away from the car so much cursing and hurrying ensued.

Long story short, we didn't see it. There was some excitement whilst looking as other birders had reported that they'd seen it, although all sightings after about 15:30 were later re-identified as being of a drone... People saw it from a very long way away so the mistake is fair enough; the main downside is that others were pulled away from various watch-points to see the 'drone' and the actual bird managed to slip through the valleys unnoticed. Fortunately it was seen the following day in the Princetown area so it didn't go all that far.

We really thought we were going to see it! We were always slightly behind the bird, and it flew low and infrequently so picking it up would have been a real challenge despite its size. On the whole it was a fantastic day. We saw the target bird (Dalmatian Pelican) without any trouble/complication so I don't really call missing the others as that much of a dip; they would have been bonuses had we seen them (a very good bonus in the form of the Lammer...).

I've never been a twitcher to drive around after birds, but a few species this year have certainly made me more long-distance twitchy than I thought I ever would be...

DALMATIAN PELICAN

Having been up for 39 of the last 40 hours and pratting around Dartmoor after a LAMMERGEIER, I'm really flipping knackered. A write-up of the day will follow but for now here's a few pics of the Pelican. Very impressive bird:

GREAT SPOTTED CUCKOO

Some more dirty twitching! I didn't expect to see another GS Cuckoo so soon after the patch bird at Beer Head (see HERE), thankfully this Portland bird looked far less knackered. It was a late afternoon visit as other commitments were prohibitive of spending much time there; it disappeared after about 5 secs initial viewing but did come back to the 'regular hedge' after an hour or so. Pics were challenging as the heat haze and light direction were BAD; if you read this blog regularly then you'll already be aware of my distaste towards strong Sunlight & heat haze for photography. My best shots were from when the Sun very briefly hid behind cloud but the bird was relatively distant and up a tree at that point. Here's a couple pics (more to come in a later post):

Great find Anthony Bentley!

Canvas prints etc

I don't really advertise the commercial side of my photography much on here so whilst I'm still writing the bridge camera vs DSLR follow-up post here's a little plug. I sell cards, mounted prints and canvases to outlets for them to sell on, but I also take private orders too. Below shows the three main product types:

-Greeting card, canvas print, mounted print (satin finish)-

Wrap-around edge of the canvas print

Although it's a common species, the Blue Tit is one of Britain's most popular birds; I quite like this pic from earlier this Spring. The pale background lends itself to mounting on walls very well and the image is nice and free from clutter whilst remaining 'arty' enough to look aesthetically pleasing on display. Anything from this page is available - please send any enquiries to:

tj.white@btinternet.com