Too Young To Be Grumpy

I've been working at home again today, hacking around a paper I've been working on. It's all pretty dull, so in my lunch-hour I went for a wander around our small garden and took a few photographs. It's a lovely day again, and the Osteospurmums were looking radiant, reaching for their Sun God.


Shiny Happy Faces


Reach for the Sun

In our remaining flower patch the cornflowers are coming out into their strange prickly-looking flower. I caught this bee feasting his face.


Bee on Cornflower

But best of all, was I spotted some damselflies mating. They were flitting around the place and it was hard to get a photo, but I eventually got a couple. Here's the best one:


Mating Damselflies

The male is the bright blue damselfly on the left, and the female is held at the neck by the male's bottom, effectively. This tandem position is used both before and after copulation, which occurs by the female swinging up to form a heart shape with the male and take the sperm that he offers at the base of his tail. It's thought the male may keep hold of the female for a while after the act so that she can't go off and be promiscuous with another male damselfly. Apparantly, damselflies have a lifespan of something like a week, so I better keep and eye open.