Here are some more photographs, taken with the macro lens that I borrowed from Maggie.
This horse fly or cleg (Haematopota pluvialis) landed on my trouser leg as I paddled my canoe quietly in the Big Pond on the hunt for damsel flies. There was something greenish about the eyes that aroused my curiosity, so I took a photograph. It wasn't until I cropped the original picture that I saw their brilliance.
These blue damselflies were busy copulating in sunny places round the pond. I think there were three different species. This blue kind, a red species, the object of the next photograph and another kind I saw as I paddled in towards my landing place.
Here is a pair of pink damselflies.
Not long after this shot, I heard distant sounds of thunder. The sky was darkening to the south. It was time to go in.
After the thunder storm, a downpour that lasted about twenty minutes, the evening was warm and calm. I walked over to the Big Pond with my visitors. Eventually a beaver slapped its tail at us and another one dived noisily. Yet another was chewing vegetation, but out of our sight. Clegs, midges and mosquitos made our wait unpleasant. Finally at about ten-o'clock a beaver swam speedily into a bed of sedge and disappeared. I think that the stillness of the evening made it easy for the beavers to scent us, hot and sweaty as we were, and lie about out of sight.
This photograph shows the stems of horsetail (Equisetum sp.) that have been grazed by beavers among others, though what others, I ask myself.
I nearly forgot to mention the thousands of tiny frogs making their way away from the ponds.
The speed with which they change their cryptic coloration is a constant wonder.
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