I’ve barely made it back from holiday, the memory card is still full of photos – including the thunderstorm shots – and I haven’t even taken it out of the camera yet… and I already have the next stupid idea in my head. 😄
I’ve always wanted to photograph dragonflies early in the morning, covered in dew and those beautiful little water droplets. The problem is: there’s only a pretty small window for this during the year. In summer, the nights are often too warm and dry. Once it starts getting cooler and more humid towards autumn and proper dew begins to form, there are already fewer and fewer dragonflies around.
So for the next few weeks I’m having an AI check the weather for me every day: ideally very little wind, high humidity, a clear night, cool enough temperatures and a good chance of heavy dew. If the conditions look promising for the morning, I get an alert. 😄
Then it means getting up early, because before sunrise dragonflies and many other insects are still very sluggish in the cool temperatures and hardly move. As soon as it gets lighter and warmer, they quickly become active again and the nice water droplets start disappearing.
This morning I got the first AI alert, so I headed out at 5:30 and spent until around 7 searching through meadows, along streams and around ponds. In the dark, of course – during the day, when the dragonflies are flying around, they’re much easier to spot. 😄
Dragonflies found: none. 😂
But I did find this little bush-cricket – so at least the early start wasn’t completely wasted. 😄
After an hour and a half of walking through wet grass, searching and crawling around on the ground, I looked about how you’d expect. Quick shower afterwards and then straight off to work. 😄
Let’s see what the next few days bring. The AI alert will probably go off a few more times over the next couple of weeks.
What have I got myself into… but hey: no pain, no gain. 😄
