The beauty of the small things in nature can never be fully described!
They tell me that I could easily turn this amount of pictures into 4 posts by simply dividing the pictures up into shorter posts. The benefit would be that we can earn more if we do four posts per day.
I am one of those that believes in quality and I am not saying here that those that do many posts each day are not quality conscious, but I am rather saying that I am happy with the longer posts.
Each of us have to do what satisfies us in respect to each other's differences and we simply have to do what it is that satisfies each of us.
Come and have a look at our summer colors here!
The "Cape Skimmer" dragonfly in the first picture landed here on this cactus plant in our garden.
I set my camera on "Macro" and carefully crept up to him.
Dragonflies can see all around them and one has to act very slowly, as they can take off in an instant!
An Acraea butterfly above enjoying the early morning sun!
This little guy is gathering nesting materials!
Here we have the "Eastern Blacktail" dragonfly species resting for a moment!
He flipped up and landed in another spot and I got him before he disappeared!
I have three shots here of the blue "Elusive Skimmer" dragonflies, but have split them to show you two species of Damselflies below!
This is called a "Pallid Spreadwing" damselfly. Their wings are transparent in flight!
And this little beauty is called a "Masai Sprite" damselfly!
This is the female of the blue male "Cape Skimmer" dragonfly species!
Here and below are the other two shots of the male "Cape Skimmer" dragonfly!
Finally a lovely yellow succulent flower...with a worker inside...to end the post!
I regularly return to dragonfly photography to keep my eye in, as when I got my first camera a few years ago, I trained myself by choosing to shoot dragonflies. Not easy, guaranteed, but once the art of shooting dragonflies is mastered, one can get clearer shots of the bigger things in flight.
Compared to a dragonfly, a falcon or other big bird is much slower and easier to capture on camera. Although I have to say that a Peregrine Falcon in a full speed dive is almost impossible to get on camera.
Experience has taught me that in life, if one takes care of the small things, the big things become so much easier to handle. The problem of course is that many of us regard the small things as inferior, or irritations and we tend to either rush through them, or avoid them. But think about it this way, a mighty pen with the wrong small nib is useless. A big .45 Colt revolver with a 9mm bullet is useless. A car without a key, a ship without a rudder, I think that you catch my drift here. The smallest thing of the human body, the tongue, is what causes us so much trouble.
Get the small things right and everything else will fall into place.
Think about it!
Note: The specie information of the dragonflies and damselflies were taken from my book.
Source; Dragonflies and Damselflies of South Africa by Warwick & Michele Tarboton.
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