On a trip to Dartmoor today, still nursing my torn muscle by the way, I sat under a cam cover and  as I waited for Meadow Pipits to come close I witnessed nature in the raw. As you can see from the photo above, this Golden Ringed Dragonfly, on it's own quite a spectacular insect, settled on a plant very near and proceeded to eat the Bumble Bee that it was carrying.   They are a big Dragonfly, the UK's longest and a I have read that they are known to eat Bumble Bees but I was quite surprised to witness this. Unfortunately I had my camera armed with  a 300 mm lens and by the time I had changed to a Macro lens the dragonfly had dropped it's half eaten prey and flown. The photo below shows what a mess it made of the bee. Interesting to note that only the thorax and part of the bees head were eaten, the body being totally untouched.

I have posted lots of Meadow Pipit photos lately but today I took some great shots of one carrying a big grasshopper.  This bird was just a few feet from me. 

 Pipits are very common on Dartmoor at the moment and it is quite easy if you are patient, to get close to them, or rather let them get close to you. If you  just sit quietly in the bracken  the birds will check you out by flying over and then moving on but I have developed a good way of concealing myself. I drape cam netting over bracken then stuff the net with pulled bracken, blending everything in with the natural vegetation. What you are left with is bracken covered net which totally blends and is 99% if not 1005 concealed, which I sit under. The camera is then poked through a larger hole in the netting and concealed with a face veil. Both netting and face veils can be purchased from the usual Government Surplus type shops and outlets. Incidentally, I also have a pop up hide which I find is not  nearly as effective because it does not blend  in nicely with the local vegetation. It looks just as it is, a cumbersome and incongruous "new" addition to the local landscape and birds can be wary of it when this new "thing" is suddenly plonked in their territory.  The bird above landed with the grasshopper only 6 feet from me at most. Unfortunately when you are under the hide, you are usually quite low because you are sat on the ground, using the bracken behind as a cover for your back. What I had to do in this instance was carefully get to my knees and try to get the camera at the same level as the bird.  This presented problems because too much movement would have "spooked" the bird who up until now was totally oblivious of me.  I managed to get to my knees and he still was unaware. I captured some great shots as you can see, even though I was shooting slightly in to the sun which cast shadows on to the birds eye and beak. I had to work really hard to turn these pictures in to something worthwhile.  

This one below is a different Pipit, taken when I positioned myself, and net  in another area.  Click on the picture and it will open larger and you will see more detail.

I then moved the net to an area next to a little stream because I had seen several birds there including Linnets, Yellowhammer and a nice female Reed Bunting.  It's a different image because it shows this young newly fledged bird on the ground amongst the grasses which is usually where they are seen.