Fresh today

UPDATED:

I've updated my blip as there have been a whole sequence of emerging common darters this morning (well three that I've spotted), and I prefer the shot of emergence number 2 which is now my main image.  You can see the newly emerged dragonfly nicely holding on to the carapace of the exuvia that it has just come out of.  You will notice the very pale almost translucent colour of the dragongfly's tail, which will gradually darken and extend as she continues to pump blood into it.

The extra (my original blip) is the first female common darter to emerge from the pond this morning. That dark shape between her and the grass stem is the exuvia that she's emerged from. 

As it has been pretty blustery lately this second one clearly chose to stay low and take advantage of the shelter offered from the breeze by the Lily Pad.  

Both are the same species of dragonfly as yesterday's blip (which was still sitting in the same place at dawn this morning), so you can see that today's newly emerged females still have a little way to go in pumping up their tails before they are going to be ready to open her wings.

We seem to have had a bumper year for new dragons this year - there have been 5 southern hawkers and more than 10 common darters.  There may also have been (judging from the exuvia left behind) a chaser of some sort.  That's not bad for a roundish garden pond with a diameter of roughly 2.5m that's only around half a meter deep.