Common Darter

It's a beautiful day - blue, clear skies and hardly a breath of wind. A perfect day for a lunchtime run. These past few weeks have been 'neither nowt nor summint' and depressing, quite frankly, to run in. I grabbed this opportunity to get some sun on my back and went for a scarper.

The sweat is still drying, you'll be delighted to hear...

I have a fantastic 3.8 mile route that takes me through fields behind the office, around a nearby nature reserve lake, complete with otter family and back again. (28.3 minutes - average 7:38 minute/mile for the statistic geeks.)

It seems the local insect fauna feel the same way about the weather. If I disturbed one Common Darter, then I disturbed a hundred. Each second stride I took, another dragonfly would take flight. It was a beautiful thing to behold I tell you. They must have all hatched together sometime between now and yesterday afternoon as I ran then with no sight of them.

The critters are easy to photograph. This was taken with my cellphone. They're territorial beasts and will always land back in the center of their patch once they've chased any interlopers away. All it takes is a little patience.

Pretty little things, are they not?