I've been trying to get a half-decent shot of a dragonfly in flight, and at Scouts' Pond today there was a pair of ruddy darters busy egg laying, so I took dozens of pictures. Sadly, once I downloaded them, only one even showed the insects well enough to identify them. They were zooming back and forth across the pond, with the male holding the female's neck with his clasper in the approved fashion, and every few seconds they would dip down so that she could deposit an egg in the water. There are lots of weeds showing through the surface of what is now quite a shallow body of water, and I believe the eggs are laid onto vegetation, rather than just being dropped in the water. The shallowness also shows how far the dreaded crassula has blanketed the bottom of the pond I'm afraid - a major job for a future working party.
Anyway, for what it's worth, here are the dragonflies; I'll have to use an even faster shutter speed next time I get the chance, in the hope of "freezing" those wings.
The reeded itself had a poor showing of cotton grass this year, but to my mind that is made up for by the excellent show of grass of parnassus. This does seem to be spreading; further evidence that our stewardship of the common is paying dividends.
And finally, in the field above Pit Common there was a lot of insect activity, with several dragonflies of indeterminate species (to me at least) bombing around the place having fights, and a couple of red admirals in the company of a comma. Here's the comma:
