Day Glow Meadow

With mission 'Emperor's Emerging' now behind me, it's been on to mission 'Meadow'. The two lower fields at Tyntesfield have been reseeded with wildflowers over the last year. It will take some time before the flowers re-assert themselves over the grasses, but like any meadow they are still a spectacle to behold and one I wished to document.

The recent gusty turn in the weather slightly blew my dreams away, certainly for aerial photography. However, this meteorological hostility was as nothing to the unromantic and brutal horse-fly assault I have been repeatedly subjecting myself too. I am a huge fan of Laurie Lee's evocative coming of age memoir 'Cider With Rosie', but all I can imagine is that you'd have to be anaesthetised with a great deal of cider before contemplating doing anything with Rosie in this meadow. Then there's the ticks... and the hay fever..., but I do understand nature has no obligation to be kind to me and at least it has the unwitting grace to be aesthetically rewarding.

Also some happy snappy snaps below of a glorious glow-worm and other garden grubs.

Meadow grass in Toggles Field at sunset

Fly dancing in the sunlight

Meadow grasses and Ox-eye Daisies

Toggles meadow and a miraculous Emperor Dragonfly

One of many kinds of meadow grass heavy with seed

Birdsfoot trefoil. I was seeking Yellow Rattle, this illuminated my ignorance.

Very close Birdsfoot trefoil

Tyntesfield House from 30m in the air

A glow

A Glow-worm

The same Glow-worm still glowing

Glow-worm glowing

A Damselfly at Backwell Lake

Cinnabar moth caterpillar

Ladybird pupa transforming on my tadpole tank

Nocturnal Dragonfly Explosion

'Dragonfly Week' at the Kitchen Garden Pond proved to be a spectacular event once again. I witnessed over 50 Emperor Dragonflies emerging. After 2 years underwater they shed their skins one last time, sprout wings and take to the air. All the action was at night, favourably warm overnight temperatures allowing the dragonflies to hatch in darkness and then fly away in the very early morning light.

I was on stakeout over consecutive nights, filming for the National Trust and, on one of the nights, with the BBC's One Show. Prior to that, I had been monitoring the pond for several days and keeping an obsessive eye on the weather to try and predict when the hatch would occur. Happily, I got it right and we saw and filmed some truly tremendous dragonfly action.

Newly emerged Emperor Dragonfly

Tyntesfield's walled garden pond, possibly the centre of the universe.

An underwater eye on the action.

Temperature chart, peaking perfectly for night-time dragonfly hatching.

Emerging Emperor Dragonfly, resting while the legs harden.

"Sticky", fell off his Iris into the pond, was relocated to a stick to dry off and departed successfully.

A Broad-bodied Chaser exuvia (empty larval case) - head end only, from a nearby pond.

Pond preparations

Like over-wintering pond life, I've been down deep and out of sight, but not without much unseen industry. Over the next 10 days I'll be filming and photographing the emergence of Emperor Dragonflies from Tyntesfield's kitchen garden pond. The pond frog will seek to wreak his revenge on the dragonfly larvae pictured below attacking his foot. 

Damselflies are already out and about and, whilst on pond filming business, I stumbled on a fox cub lolling about outside its den. A bit of a chocolate box picture, I realise now that's a photographic pitfall you escape when concentrating on bugs and weirdos. In the words of Milton Jones, "my bugbear are the insect mammal crosses"....

Fox cub getting a whiff of me upwind (schoolboy error)

Large Red Damselfly

Azure Damselfly

Frog with foot attacked by dragonfly nymph

Dragonfly nymph bitten off more than he can chew

Damselfly squadron