Photos

This is the first of many I hope, of this years Damselflies.
She has been emerged from the water a couple of days by the look of here colouring. When just emerged they are almost see through green.There is surrposed to be a link back to a previous picture here but it will not work ( HELP PLEASE )
one on the hand

they then fly off from the waters edge and spend 10 -14days becoming sexually mature high up in trees uto several 100m.They also go through a couple of colour changes,hardening to the colour you see here to here final adult colouring away from the pond,also the multi-coloured sheen on the wings fade to dull clear see through. So I was lucky to spot her on a lower branch of a willow close to the lake.Going on the colour she is showing now she is going to end up as the drab form of the common blue damselfly, instead of being bright blue and black the blue is replaced by a dull olive green.
You can tell she is female by the 2 little spikes under the end of her tail, not present in the male.
I am posting this almost silhoutte picture of her because you can see the jaws in outline normally hidden against the head. These are use to snatch prey in midd-air that they have netted out of the air using the hairs on the legs held forward to make a basket/net. and have left the leaf over the top to give the idea of the sort of shaddy hidding place they choose to mature in.
Adjustments
Levels -move the output to 11 - 245
Saturation +8 Lightness +4
Brightness +4 Contrast -3
Sharpen edges
Burntool to harden up hairs and anentae
USM 120% X 1.9px X threshold 1
Crop to 28.22 X 21cm with a slight rotation, leaving some leaf at the top to give more of an idea of the shade the pic. was taken in.
Use save to web 200k at 72dpi
post to TE, hope you like?