Green Skimmer - Yala, Sri Lanka

Green Skimmer (Ortherum sabina sabina) - Yala, Sri Lanka

Between the morning and afternoon drives through the Yala national park I spent some time experimenting with my macro lens. I'm still getting the hang of using it but it was very early days in Yala. Fortunately the harsh midday light ruled out the need for a flash and simplified things for me.

More photographs inside.

Green Skimmer (Ortherum sabina sabina) - Yala, Sri Lanka 

This Green Skimmer was a cooperative subject and was content to sit still while I played around with auto-focus and manual focus. I also had extension tubes on which made focusing quite difficult. I used the macro lens for the first and third photographs on this post.

 

Green Skimmer (Ortherum sabina sabina) - Yala, Sri Lanka

The Green Skimmer is also known as the Green Marsh Hawk and can be found in parts of Africa, Asia and Australia. Both sexes are similar in appearance and can be identified by the shape of the abdomen, dilated first three segments and the alternating yellow-green and black pattern.

Green Skimmer (Ortherum sabina sabina) - Yala, Sri Lanka

It is a very common dragonfly in Sri Lanka and can be found around tanks, ponds, irrigation channels and rice fields. It's range covers the low country and extends up into the hills. I have photographed them on a number of occasions in Thalangama, Yala and Arankelle.

Green Skimmer (Ortherum sabina sabina) - Yala, Sri Lanka

All photographs on this post were taken with the Canon 7D. The 100mm macro was used for the first and third photographs while the 100-400mm lens was used for the others. Fortunately I didn't have to use a flash for any of these photographs.

Dancing Dropwing

A Dancing Dropwing photographed in Anuradhapura, Sri Lanka

The Dancing Dropwing is an uncommon dragonfly found in Sri Lanka. I came across a number of them in Anuradhapura. They differ from their more common relatives as they are slightly bigger in size. Their black and yellow coloration, long spidery legs and bicoloured pterostigma can be used to identify this species. More info after the jump.

A Dancing Dropwing photographed in Anuradhapura, Sri Lanka

The female of this species has tinted wings and yellow anal appendages. it's abdomen is also shorter and thicker than that of the male. The abdomen area is around 26 - 32mm in length and the wing span is also around 30-36mm in length. They can usually be found on the banks of tanks (man made lakes), ponds, paddy fields and slow flowing streams. Their range covers areas of both the dry and wet zones.

A Dancing Dropwing photographed in Anuradhapura, Sri Lanka

I was photographing Asian Groundlings in an abandoned paddy field on the banks of Tissa wewa (sinhalese word for a man made lake) when I saw a couple of Dancing Dropwings among them. I miss took them for the more common Green Skimmer and only captured a few images of the species. I was surprised as I was able to get within about a meter of them to capture these images. As usual I was unable to get closer to them because of the minimum focusing distance of the 100-400mm lens. I think I see a new macro lens on the horizon.

These images were captured using a Canon 7D and a 100-400mm lens.

A Dancing Dropwing photographed in Anuradhapura, Sri Lanka

Another post on the Green Skimmer can be found here.

* I initially made a mistake and identified this species as a Green Skimmer.Thanks to Amila Salgado for the the correction.

Green Skimmer

The Green Skimmer is a widespread dragonfly in Sri Lanka. It is frequently found hovering near ponds, water ways, paddy fields and streams. More info inside.

This image was taken at Arankelle near Kurunegala. We were travelling up to Dambulla at the time and had planned to stop at Arankelle for breakfast as we wanted to have a look at the ruins of the ancient monastery. As I approached one of the ponds in the complex I noticed that it was teeming with dragonflies. The majority of them were either Green Skimmers or Scarlet Baskers. I sat on the steps leading down into the pond and waited a couple of minutes until this Green Skimmer settled on one of the reeds in the water. Fortunately I had the 100-400mm lens on the camera and was able to capture the image above without having to move any closer. The light was fairly good and I was able to shoot at 1/1000th of a second.

I also noticed a pair of dragonflies in the wheel position in flight but was unable to capture an image of them. I managed to lock focus on them but they moved before I could release the shutter.

I'm still not very good at identifying dragonflies and had actually thought that this Green Skimmer was a Sri Lankan Forktail. Thankfully Amila was able to correct me.