Fortune favours the righteous, they say – which definitely wouldn’t be me. But I’ll admit that I was feeling a bit self-righteous this morning, sitting at my desk ploughing through financial admin that I could easily have put off till tomorrow. Or next week. So when I took a coffee break and allowed myself a 10-minute bug hunt around the garden, and promptly found first a sleeping female Plumpie and then a fresh male Holly Blue, I did feel that maybe fortune was on my side.
The bee was resting in very harsh light, sadly, but I’ve included the butterfly because it’s nice to see one as smart as this – they spend much of their time rummaging around in trees in search of females, so the little chaps don’t stay as pristine as this for very long. On most days of the week he’d have been in top spot, but today was not his day because fortune still had one more gift to offer me, in the shape of this Large Red Damselfly, who wafted past me as I walked into the secret garden and landed on the laurel hedge. Don’t mess this up, I instructed myself fiercely – at the start of the season it’s not unusual for me to snatch my shots and lose my quarry – but with the Lazy Woman’s Macro on the camera I was able to stand far enough back to avoid putting Big Red to flight. Record shots snagged, I then just had to edge round one step at a time until I got him parallel to the front lens element, giving me some photos that have him sharp from stem to stern.
Gift received and accepted; job completed; grateful thanks offered up to both fortune and damselfly. Back in the house I gave a little whoop of triumph and did the Crash Bandicoot dance around the kitchen table: my 2026 dragon season just went live.
R: L2, C8, D12.
