For the first time since returning from our Canadian adventure a week ago we walked today into the Suffolk countryside to the west of the house, heading for the village of Kirton. In the month we've been away the crops in the fields have shot up, to the point where potatoes in one field were already being harvested and the wheat in another looked almost ripe.
I was looking for dragonflies and, as might be expected after the cornucopia of Canada, the numbers in the Suffolk countryside seemed disappointing but not the variety: we saw at least six different dragon- and damselflies, often sunning themselves along the paths cut through the crops, including....
....a number of male black-tailed skimmers, their blue abdomens almost luminous, and their rather duller....
....but still pretty female versions.
This one looked different from anything I had seen before but it turned out to be a species we'd often encountered but at a different stage: this is a teneral female, teneral meaning that she has only just emerged from the larval stage so her exoskeleton hasn't hardened. As a result she is very vulnerable to predators and is unable to fly well - which probably explains why she was so loath to move from her hiding place.
There were also plenty of common blue damselflies, some of them in mating wheels.
We went to Kirton, a walk of some six kilometres, to do some shopping, this in a dormitory village sadly lacking in services: it has two churches, a primary school and a village hall but its village shop has closed and its only other facility is a pub which doesn't open until 4pm. However, Kirton does have....
....a very traditional blacksmiths which doesn't have an internet presence and about which we only heard by word-of-mouth. We located it using Google maps (above, opposite the pub) and have now ordered a special washing line post at a very reasonable price.
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