Nature in motion

Linda and I had a lovely afternoon at Mere Sands Wood yesterday. It's less than two miles from home and one of our regular strolls. Sarah was hard at work and Katie was hard at shopping so we made the tough choice between doing our well overdue household chores, or going out to play! We're SO glad we did. As usual it was really peaceful there and along the way we saw this stunning dragonfly (Northern Emerald I think?) coming into the world for its second life and warming up its wings in the sunshine. You may need to click on the pictures to see better detail.

Lower down the stem of the flower was the discarded exoskeleton of the dragonfly nymph which had emerged from its underwater home only moments earlier.

He/She was a bit of a poser and kept me entertained for ages....

Meanwhile... Linda saw a very distinctive flash of blue move over the pond and we were lucky enough to sit and watch a Kingfisher perched for some time, before he dived in for a bite to eat. We were quite a distance away but with the binoculars it made a fantastic show. Again, if you click on the pics they show much better.







It was definitely one of those "It's really good being me!" Sundays :-)