The end of a crane fly

It must be said that adult crane flies only live for a few days anyway in spring and summer months. It is also quite common for them to shed a leg or two as a way of escaping predators. Sadly this poor female didn’t survive.

I had taken my husband to a local park in the hope of photographing some butterflies. However, it was too wet and windy and a couple of hours later we were heading back to the car park. All of a sudden I saw a nearby common blue damselfly catch something and land on a nearby leaf. My husband was less than impressed that I decided to photograph the proceedings, but in my opinion, this is nature and it’s what I try to document as faithfully as possible.

So while I knelt on the ground for the next six or seven minutes, he wandered up the path and out of sight of the damselfly lunch. I was lucky to be tucked behind a small bank and out of the strong wind that had been blowing all day. Thankfully most of the images were in focus and where I would normally choose the best one, I decided to keep a series showing the action from start to finish. Researching crane flies later that night, I realised this one was rather special in yellow and black tiger stripes. I returned to the park about a week later, in the hope of finding an intact specimen, but on that occasion I only found butterflies.