Wildlife Photography across the Water: Pond Life pt 2 - Metamorphosis of a Large Red Damselfly

Saturday, 30 April 2011

Pond Life pt 2 - Metamorphosis of a Large Red Damselfly

In Part 1 of this series, I said I would bring you a series of the emergence of a Large Red Damselfly. Since then, they have continued to emerge at a rate of between five and eight per day until yesterday when there were no new ones, although we are now seeing the matured early emergent back around the pond and starting to mate.

This series of images were taken over a period of about forty minutes, with the damsel staying on the leaf warming for a further hour or so before it finally flew.

Just emerging, tail still in its case and umbilicals still connected

Finallly free

Body starting to straighten

Tail beginning to extend

Wings beginning to pump out

More wing extension, now level with tail

More wing expansion

Wings now fully formed

Tail now extended

Now fully formed and moving round to the sunny side to warm up

As you can see from the exposures the light was variable with either full sun or part cloud. Images were taken with the Canon 5Dmk2, Canon 180 f3.5L macro, using the live view facility and resting on a beanbag on the pond edge.

Martin

2 comments:

mark wood30 April 2011 at 10:45
Absolutely fantastic Martin, what a privilege to witness, many thanks for sharing this with us.
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harley6 May 2011 at 18:44
I see the pictures of the spices which one is sitting on the leaves and it is a nice snap shoot according to me .

Pond Liners
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Bio's

David Courtenay, a self taught wildlife and nature photographer, has been capturing images for over 30 years. He has had a passion for wildlife since early childhood and remembers being glued to the television whenever Survival, Wildlife on One and other natural history documentaries were shown. In the 2006 he swapped his established career for the life of a wildlife photographer, such a move demands a measure of uncompromising passion and commitment.

David has travelled extensively throughout Europe as well as spending more than 7 months in India working with local guides and trackers in search of Bengal Tiger, Asian One horned Rhino and Asian Elephant. He has also photographed Wildlife in Australia, Malaysia, Thailand, Sumatra, Africa, Canada and America. Working closely with Conservation companies he tries to raise funds to help Wildlife that has been put on the endangered list by poaching and habitation loss

Martin Dyer has had a passion for avian wildlife since childhood, particularly raptors. Photography was also another keen interest and it was with the specific availability and control of the whole process that digital offers that Martin was then able to combine the two in 2003. Based in the UK, Martin is a regular visitor to Scotland, specifically the Isle of Mull to watch the Eagles resident there. Other trips to Europe and around the UK are usually part of Martin’s agenda in a typical year.

However, as a firm believer on making the most of the local patch, Martin has spent a lot of time and hard work creating a wildlife garden which is reaping the rewards with many new species and varieties of wildlife. A keen member of a number of wildlife photographic groups, Martin is keen to expand his portfolio into other areas of wildlife, and has already established a wide portfolio of images of fungi.