Tuesday 21 July 2015

Black-tailed Skimmer.

After all the recent posts about butterflies I thought it was time for a change of emphasis. So from a visit to Bushy Park in mid June a few shots of the Black-tailed Skimmer (Orthetrum cancellatum).

A fast, low flying species that it highly active but males holding a territory often return to the same perch in order to watch out for other interloping males and for any female returning to an oviposition site.


The females spend most of their time away from water so the males have to act very fast and copulation often only lasts 20-30 seconds, sometimes without even alighting within the male's territory. I watched this pair [female is on the left] flying together for at least 5 minutes before landing well away from the water to continue the mating process.


9 comments:

  1. These are beautiful creatures and you captured them quite well.

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  2. Brilliant images especially the close up in the last shot.

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  3. Great job, Frank. Excellent coverage.

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  4. Always marvelous posts and the dragons are outstanding. Frank, I miss hearing from you and notice that you mainly use Google Chrome and I am trying to let people know, I do not know how to use it and yet I am somehow connected to it, so when I get notifications, etc, I have no clue what to do about them, but still visit from my side bar, where I keep your blog in my fav list~

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  5. always find them easy to mistake for broad bodied chasers at a distance

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  6. I too have notice that many female species will be away from the water and the males are bickering and fighting near the water.

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  7. Beautiful macros and interesting commentary. Thanks for your nice comments on our granddaughter's post. She will be delighted to see them.

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  8. Gorgeous captures of the dragonflies!

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I hope you enjoyed your visit and I always appreciate your comments and feedback.

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