Dead Dragonflies

We've been away for a very special long weekend meeting all our close family in Inverness, a busy, bustling little city crammed with tourists of all descriptions. While it was good to have a brief re-acquaintance with urban life, it was better to be walking up the track which runs past our house and into the forestry.

However, at the little aggregate quarry where palmate newts and frogs used to live, a sharp-eyed member of our family spotted....

....a dead hawker floating in one of the small puddles formed by the miserable seep of water that's all that's left of the original pond.

It was almost certainly a golden-ringed dragonfly as we saw this species laying eggs in one of the small channels of water in the quarry this time last year.

This was disappointing enough but, a little further up the seep, the same family member spotted....

....another and, close by....

....yet another, this one broken just behind the thorax.

I know that dragonflies have brief lives but to find three dead within ten metres of each other is a bit concerning. We have had trucks and heavy digging machinery parked in this area so did wonder whether the water may have been contaminated by fluids from them.

Whatever the cause, we do hope that some of the dragonflies managed to lay eggs so we see some of this, the UK's largest dragonfly, again next year.