The last week has been quite a happy sort of week. It's been a week of day-trips and glorious sunshine; a week of relaxed, unrushed holiday.
But the highlight, for me at least, was an hour or so at the National Botanical Gardens spent in spotting dragonflies, with one of the volunteer rangers. Apparently, last year, he counted twenty different dragon- and damselfly species.
I hadn't realised there were that many (there are, in fact, considerably more). To be fair, though, I've never really given it that much thought. Nor that they might be colours other than blue. Or how to tell them apart (it's all to do with how they hold their wings at rest: damsels bring them in close to the body; dragons keep them spread out).
We were lucky on our dragonfly hunt. If the temperature is too cold (below about 15C), they don't fly. Can't warm up enough to get the energy or something. This week has been considerably warmer than that, and the insects were out in force.
Mostly, we saw blue dragons and damsels, but there were also a few red damselflies. Some of the blue ones even got close enough to be identified without the binoculars. And the enormous emperors easily seen from across the lake. Like little helicopters, the emperors are, zooming through the air across the water.
Both dragon- and damselflies spend most of their lives as nymphs, in the mud at the bottom of the pond or lake or river where their eggs are laid. Usually several years. They only spend a few weeks, maybe a month, as the pretty insects above-water. I did know this before the guided walk, and I have very vague memories of an Enid Blyton story about some sort of insect-nymph. Unless I'm misremembering.
What I didn't know was that they are a very old sort of creature, with fossils discovered which predate even the dinosaurs. They were bigger then.
It was a fascinating walk along the edges of the lakes, and a different way of looking at the gardens. We were, however, grateful for the buggy-ride back to the cafe for a tea and cake and some shade afterwards.
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