Dragonflies on the Coal Tips....

Keeled Skimmer (Orthetrum coerulescens)

Managed to find three of our larger Dragonflies up on the Coal Tips. The most spectacular the Emperor Dragonfly (Anax imperator) was only seen in passing - it shot past revealing its distinctive drooping abdomen. This is one of our largest dragonflies and it would have been nice to get shot. However it did not favour me with a return flight.
I got a lot luckier with my next spot, it was a Keeled Skimmer. A pair of these rather attractive blue dragonflies were hawking up and down over a boggy stretch of path. By the look of it this area is always wet, it has reeds and sphagnum moss. I suspect that this is an area where water draining through the coal waste emerges. Not that these dragonflies cared. I watched them for some time before taking a couple of shots and leaving. This was not a breeding pair, they both seemed to be males.

Up on the top of the Coal Tip I met up with one of our most charismatic larger dragonflies the Goldringed. This black and yellow stripped  insect defends a defined territory, this makes it easier photograph. Within its territory it will maintain certain prominent positions that it uses as perches. This Goldring was hunting and showing off the flying skills that these insects are renowned for. While I was their it hovered, changed direction at 90 degree angles, accelerated and decelerated hard, and flew backwards. I was also checked out as a perch, being a stationary high point. Much as I would have been honoured it would have made photography tricky! Eventually the dragonfly made a kill and returned to a gorse bush perch to have a munch. I tracked his perch down by sound - you could hear him crunching, what turned out to be a wasp. By the time I had crept up close most of the wasp was history, however the dragonfly hung around and allowed me to get really close. Fantastic creature!

Common Goldring (Cordulegaster boltonii)