A close encounter with a common darter

This teneral female common darter was struggling to fly in the wind yesterday morning and crashed into the lawn.  It seemed happy to hitch a ride on my finger to find shelter.

It was a great opportunity for a close look at it, despite the difficulty of using the macro lens one-handed.

Here are the wonderful mirror-like wings.

After an extended photoshoot it flew a couple of feet away and spent all the rest of the day resting on some faded hellebore flowers in the porch.  The strange reflections in the eyes are from the ring flash.

When I looked this morning it was still there, sheltering from the rain.  It stayed all day but had moved on by this evening.

It has been a good year for dragons and damsels in the garden.  So far I have seen large red, common blue, and blue-tailed damselflies and a southern hawker as well as this common darter.  I don't know if any of them emerged from my pond.