I took another trip up to 9 km. Bog two days ago. I was particularly interested in photographing two things, the Swamp Gentian, Gentiana douglasiana, a plant that is quite common in the bog, but that I have never taken the time to photograph, and the Ringed Emerald, Somatochlora albicincta, a dragonfly which is also common, and I have tried to photograph many times, but have never succeeded. The Swamp Gentian was the easy one, although it was certainly not a case of simply finding a plant and photographing it. These gentians grow low in among the sedges and as a result are difficult to photograph with a nice clean background. After spending quite a bit of time looking for a suitable plant I finally realized that there was only one way I was going to get the photo I wanted. I plucked a single plant out of the ground and wedged it in a crack in one of the many bare tree stumps in the bog and got my photo that way.

I try avoiding doing this sort of thing, but when a plant is so common that you trample them with almost every single step you take, somehow sacrificing a single plant for the sake of a photo doesn’t seem that bad, especially considering that I am one of only a handful of people who ever even visit this bog.

While I was at it I also photographed two other plants using the same technique. Bog cranberry, Oxycoccus oxycoccos, is another tough one to photograph as it is a low creeper with tiny leaves and flowers. The tiny flowers of this plant remind me of miniature shooting stars, Dodecatheon sp.

My final plant was the Great Sundew, Drosera anglica, which I have photographed before, but when I found a particularly robust plant with lots of leaves and some flowers as well, I couldn’t resist. Again I used the same technique, but in this case I just lifted the chunk of moss it was growing in from the ground and placed the whole thing on a log. Because nothing was rooted to the ground I was able to replace plant and moss right back where they came from.

I held little hope of getting the emerald’s photo as I had tried many times before without success, but well, you have to keep trying. The problem is that the few perched individuals I have seen have been very wary and have flown before I could get close enough to get a photo, and the flying individuals, which are quite common, only seem to hover very briefly. On this occasion I was siting on my portable 3-legged stool taking photos of another plant when an emerald stopped and hovered almost right in front of me. I quickly got my camera up and took a burst of about 5 photos, then the dragonfly moved slightly and hovered again. Another burst of photos and again the dragonfly moved slightly and stopped to hover. Twice more it repeated before it finally decided to fly off, leaving me amazed and ecstatic. Although many of the images were out of focus because the dragonfly was moving slightly, I managed to get seven shots that were quite good. So here are two photos I’m quite happy with.