Roger had already arrived when I pulled into the car park at Watt's Wood near Lincoln. Our target was broad bodied chaser dragon flies which we had watched and photographed in previous years in the ponds in neighbouring Monk's Wood. We were quickly ready and made our way to the first pond collecting suitable sticks for perches on the way. The relatively new wood was looking splendid in its spring finery and bird song was all around, especially willow warblers which seemed to be everywhere. On reaching the pond all looked promising, although there was no sign of dragonfly activity, so we put in our perches and then walked through the wood to inspect our second pond. This seems much more grown up than it used to be and provided very few opportunities for photography. Returning to our first location we settled down in the sun to wait......... and wait!!! To no avail! Exploration of the area around the pond produced orange tip butterfly, azure damselfly and quite a few large red damselflies one pair of which was mating, but no dragonflies. Eventually one appeared and began hunting over the pond but not a broad bodied. At first we thought four spotted chaser but in the event it turned out to be a male hairy dragonfly. After some effort I managed to get some pleasing images which I was delighted with as it is not a species I have photographed very often. We did see a female broad bodied very briefly and came to the conclusion that in our enthusiasm we were just too early. Other butterflies seen included small white, brimstone, peacock and a day-flying mint moth and I was pleased to find several marsh orchids - my second orchid of the season. Notable birds were willow warbler, green woodpecker, blackcap and whitethroat.
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