Emperor dragonfly

Until recently I had never seen an emperor dragonfly (Anax imperitor). This is surprising since the British Dragonfly Society describes the species as "Widespread in southern England and southern Wales; increasing its range northwards." In other words common where I have lived for the past three years. However, I know I haven't seen one because it is so big and boldly coloured that I am sure I would have remembered it. The emperor dragonfly belongs to the group known as "hawkers", and I am familiar with the common hawker, a species that we saw annually when we lived in north-west England. The specimen above was flying between some ornamental pools at the front of a country house and I got my image with a longish focal length lens that I had been using for architectural shots.

photo © T. Boughen     Camera: Olympus OMD E-M10

Autumn leaf

Recently, after a couple of days of almost non-stop rain, we visited our youngest son and found that he had erected a pop-up event shelter in his garden. It has arches rather than filled in sides and is ideal in these coronavirus times. The children can play under it, we can all meet under it and, as I found when I looked up, there are interesting photographs to be found under it. This leaf is on the outside surface of the shelter along with the water droplets. Unfortunately I didn't have a dedicated camera with me, only the one in my phone, but it did a reasonable job.

photo © T. Boughen     Camera: Phone

Field maple leaf

It's a little early for deciduous trees to be losing their leaves but a field maple I know has begun to do so. I suspect that it is suffering distress because not on all the branches have the leaves taken on a yellow tinge rather than the usual deep green of summer. Field maples are popular hedging plants in some parts of Britain. Elsewhere thay are usually single, taller trees. In autumn they naturally turn a fine, golden yellow, matched only by the lime tree. This leaf had caught itself on the arris rail of a fence and, havng no camera to hand, I snapped it with my phone.

photo © T. Boughen     Camera: Phone