Southern Hawker

Southern hawker dragonfly

This southern hawker dragonfly, Aeshna cyanea, was hawking around by a sheltered path through the woodland at RHS Harlow Carr Gardens but obligingly perched on a rhododendron leaf, allowing us to photograph it. This is a male, distinguished by the three blue-spotted segments at the tip of its abdomen.

Woodland at Harlow Carr

A nuthatch calls insistently as we take the path behind the Doric Temple.

Rhododendron

These twisted trunks remind me of old olive trees, but I think that they’re Rhododendrons.

Sequoia bark

Giant Sequoia bark has a spongy texture, which acts as insulation in forest fires. Much as I like sequoias, I’m sorry to hear that large plantations of them are being planted on some Welsh hillsides: this might be an efficient way of taking carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere but it won’t do a lot for another key environmental problem, the loss of biodiversity.