Walmer Castle
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 Walmer Castle, near Deal, Kent Today I visited Walmer Castle, a lovely place to visit on any day as a wander around the gardens is always a pleasant stroll, but today I was there to see if I could find some little visitors who had taken up home in the pond: Small Red-eyed Damselflies (Erythromma viridulum). They are recent colonists of the UK, first being recorded in 1999. The castle was built in 1539 during the reign of Henry VIII as part of a chain of coastal artillery defences against Catholic attack from Europe. Walmer Castle has evolved over time into an elegant residence and became the official residence of the Lord Warden of the Cinque Ports in 1708. The Duke of Wellington, who held the post of Lord Warden for 23 years actually died at the castle and his room is still much as it was then. There are also many interesting things to see including a pair of original “Wellington Boots”. The castle today was even more worth a visit as all the rooms had beautiful floral displays. They had been specially created for the Lord Warden's annual visit where he entertains local guests. The smell of the many lilies and roses in the rooms was gorgeous.
A visit to the lovely little tea room is always worth it too so after enjoying a lovely scone and coffee for my lunch I went to the pond hoping the weather would allow a few sunny intervals when the damselflies are more likely to be active, I needn’t have worried there were hundreds of them all busily flying and from what I could tell constantly searching for a suitable mate too. The pond and garden in which it is situated was created for the Queen Mother (who was the Lord Warden at the time) on the occasion of her 95th birthday. It really has developed over the years into a lovely place to sit on a summer’s day.  Red-eyed damselfly that I rescued from the water The damselflies are tiny wee creatures and not easy at all to capture on camera as they are hardly ever still, even when laying eggs. I also went in for a bit of damselfly rescue: I noticed one that was really struggling in the water as its wings were saturated where it had fallen in. It clung onto my finger and was quite happy to sit there drying off. It certainly couldn’t fly, so this was an excellent chance of getting a close up but it’s not easy to hold your heavy macro lens and focus your camera one handed! I eventually put him on a nearby flower and hope he lived to see another day. I watched other mating pairs and it was obvious none of them liked to get into the water preferring to rest on a lily pad or some vegetation for fear of getting trapped in there. I saw a couple more damsels who were obviously going to be sleeping with the numerous fishes very soon. I sadly couldn’t reach them all for damselfly rescue attempts.
 Female Emperor dragonfly ovipositing After taking numerous shots of the Red-eyed Damselflies and finding a few Blue-tailed Damselflies (Ischnura elegans) too, I went for a walk around the gardens and enjoyed looking at both the long herbaceous borders and kitchen gardens and I thought I’d give the pond one more look before I went home. I was so glad I did too. I had watched a large Emperor Dragonfly (Anax imperator) patrolling the pond and I said to him/her please come and sit on this lily pad here next to me! Now I don’t have some power trust me but the dragonfly must have been listening because that’s just what happened: they moved closer and started laying eggs (ovipositing) right in front of me, so it was obvious this was a lady Emperor. As you can imagine I took as many shots as I could until my card filled up. Timing, eh! A quick clear out of old files and she was still sitting there. If only all dragonflies did as I asked them and sat so close; taking pictures of them would be so much easier. Recommended Reading If you are interesting in finding out more about these and Britain's other orchids, these books are very handy to have. You can buy them directly through Amazon.co.uk from this site.  
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The changeable lighting during the day didn’t make for easy picture taking at all as it was a case of constantly changing settings on the camera trying to get the best shot and I began to think I wouldn’t get many pictures I would end up keeping today but the Emperor Dragonfly certainly made my day.
I stopped off at the beach on my way home to take a closer look at the boats and look for any seabirds but the clouds had closed in again although the pictures don’t look like it, there were certainly some big grey clouds behind me. Those sunny intervals really weren’t long ones today but I think I made the most of every one.
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