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Good day for dragons - having had several days now of very warm weather (at last!). These were all taken with largely or entirely ambient light.
On our way to begin the Cliff Walk, from Bray to Greystones. The walk takes you around, up and over Bray Head. Then it's an easy train ride back.
The dart frogs are not as toxic in C.R. as in other countries. They will only make your arm go numb if you have a cut while touching them. This is one little fellow I didn't play with!
Black Darter (Sympetrum danae)
A small heathland and moorland species, and the only UK black dragonfly. The males become extensively black with maturity with a black frons and thorax. Some yellow markings remain along the sides of the abdomen and thorax.
Females and immature males have a yellow abdomen and brown thorax marked with a black triangle on top. The side of the thorax and the lower part of the abdomen is strongly marked in black.
This picture was taken at Lakhota Lake Jamnagar. A plastic thread waste has struck to her beak disabling her to hunt.
It can kill her.
local authorities needs to take notice of these things and try to clean the garbage from the lake.
Female Common Darter Dragonfly, Thursley Common National Nature Reserve, Elstead, Surrey. 2015/08/15
Australian Darter drying out in the sun after a dip chasing Black Bream.
Taken at Fisherman's Reserve, Guildford on the Swan River in Western Australia.
Slanghalsvoel
(Anhinga rufa)
The African darter, sometimes called the snakebird, is a water bird of sub-Saharan Africa and Iraq.
The African darter is a member of the darter family, Anhingidae, and is closely related to American (Anhinga anhinga), Oriental (Anhinga melanogaster), and Australasian (Anhinga novaehollandiae) darters.
The male is mainly glossy black with white streaking, but females and immature birds are browner. The African darter differs in appearance from the American darter most recognisably by its thin white lateral neck stripe against a rufous background colour. The pointed bill should prevent confusion with cormorants.
It is an 80 cm long cormorant-like fish-eating species with a very long neck, like other anhingas.
The African darter is found throughout sub-Saharan Africa wherever large bodies of water occur; overall the species remains widespread and common.
One subspecies, the Levant darter (Anhinga rufa chantrei), occurred at Lake Amik (Amik Gölü) in south-central Turkey, in Hula valley lake and marshes in northern Israel and in the Mesopotamian Marshes of the lower Euphrat and Tigris rivers in southern Iraq. The Turkish population disappeared during the 1930s and the Israeli population during Hula drainage in the 1950s. It was feared that it also had disappeared from Iraq, but a small and threatened population remains at least in the Hawizeh Marshes (part of the Mesopotamian Marshes), which are also home to numerous other waters birds such as little grebe, pygmy cormorant, marbled teal and sacred ibis.
This species builds a stick nest in a tree and lays 3–6 eggs. It often nests with herons, egrets and cormorants.
It often swims with only the neck above water, hence the common name snakebird. This, too, is a habit shared with the other anhingas.
Unlike many other waterbirds the feathers of the African darter do not contain any oil and are therefore not waterproof. Because of this, the bird is less positively buoyant and its diving capabilities are enhanced. After diving for fish, the feathers can become waterlogged. In order to be able to fly and maintain heat insulation, it needs to dry its feathers. Thus the African darter is often seen sitting along the waterside spreading its wings and drying its feathers in the wind and the sun along with cormorants which may share its habitat.
Wikipedia
Tried so hard to catch this darter flying, had just given up, when it landed on this stick for about a second....click !
Common darter dragonfly- natural light fill flash. Compare to www.flickr.com/photos/lordv/882374411/
See www.flickr.com/photos/lordv/882333591/ for a 3-D version