Southern Hawker

The spaniel and I had a superb walk on the South Downs this morning. The overnight rain and strong winds meant that you could see for miles. It was a new walk, starting from Plumpton, going up the steep chalk path of Warningore bostal on to Blackcap, then turning east over Mount Harry and beyond before swinging south to Cuckoo Bottom and Bulmer Down before turning north into the hidden valley of Ashcombe Bottom (masses of butterflies in the glades here), through the woods and back out onto Blackcap. Perfect conditions for some nice landscape images but when I reached into my camera bag I only had a 100mm macro lens with me. So here instead is a female Southern Hawker dragonfly.