I’m not sure what happened to these cardoons, or rather to the remains of cardoons, to give them such a bleached-out appearance. They were among the plants growing wild on the site of a former helipad in Stratford on Avon.
Along with the several damselflies by the river at Stratford, there were two dragonflies, of different species. One was large, brown, and constantly on the move. It stayed too far out over the water to get a clear view, or any sort of picture. The other was more cooperative, spending time resting on a leaf. It was a broad bodied chaser, which is indeed one of the commoner dragonflies.
It was a mature male. Immature males and all females are yellow-brown.
Ripe plums fallen from a tree, their skins in various stages of decoration from the fungi which are rotting them.
Where vegetation grows wild on the banks of the Avon it’s normally good for lots of different insect types in summer, including butterflies. On one occasion, we even saw an exotic tropical butterfly there. Sadly, that will have been an escapee from the nearby butterfly farm. This year, in the summer without butterflies, all we could spot was this single comma, feeding on the waterside meadowsweet flowers.
Bancroft Gardens, by the canal basin and the river in Stratford on Avon, is a municipal showcase. Cardoons are quite a feature, including these which were coming to the end of their flowering season by the path to the Tramway Bridge.
Male demoiselles, brightly coloured damselflies, spend much of their time on sunny days resting on waterside leaves, displaying themselves. Should a second male come in to land close to where one is already resting, they both take to the air. There’s a brief skirmish, ending with the intruder finding its landing place a little distance away and the other settling back into its old position.
I don’t remember ever seeing two males settled so close as these before, both on the same leaf. Occasionally, one or other of them would take off, fly around for a brief time, then land again where it had previously been.