Day of the Dragon

[David Rees <>]

Harvey

I was also there at the time, it appeared to me that it was an individual bird doing this, though given how good it was it might catch on.

I have updated my Australian reed warbler footage to include footage of the bird taking the wings of a dragonfly before eating it.  I only had a secondary camera with me, which would not match the clarity obtained by Geoffrey with his impressive 'artillery piece'.

see  https://vimeo.com/107674156 for the action - second half of film, sound swapped out and replaced to remove camera noises etc.

David

On Wed, Dec 21, 2016 at 8:25 AM, Harvey Perkins <> wrote:

Great shots, Geoff. The dragonfly is a Tau Emerald Hemicordulia tau. Was this all the one individual?

Harvey

On 20 December 2016 at 15:44, Geoffrey Dabb <> wrote:

I spent an hour yesterday and this morning waiting for a Little Bittern, without any serious expectation of seeing one. Too few bitterns, too much typha.  However there were certainly two different birds calling yesterday.  From the hide this morning one could see at least 5 dragonflies being despatched by busy RWs.  The D-flies seem to be all the one species. I can confirm the RWs can snatch them from the air.  That motionless hovering might be clever, but is not necessarily advantageous from a natural selection viewpoint.  Catching the insects took less time than removing the wings.