Another day, another species

In this season, every time I go out to take photos, there seems to be a new species flying about. New for this year, that is.

The other day, it was this dragonfly called four-spotted chaser (Libellula quadrimaculata), viervlek in Dutch:

^{Olympus Stylus 1s, 300mm, ISO200, f8, 1/160s}

It gets its name from the extra dark spots (called pterostigmata by biologists) on the leading edges of it wings; other species only have one per wing:

^{Olympus Stylus 1s, 300mm, ISO200, f8, 1/160s}

This one may look to be doing nothing much at all, but it is actually hunting. It is looking for flying insects against the sky from one of its favourite perches:

^{Olympus Stylus 1s, 300mm, ISO200, f8, 1/200s}

Beautiful animal, isn't it?