Red eye
(Red dragonfly at the Ibah hotel: Bali, Indonesia)
I have to share this image because at the time, I was so pleased with it! Many of the mews areas away from the main roads in Bali were quite magical with their multi-coloured fish in their shallow, limpid pools, their leafy mossiness, their staggered statues, sentinel-like around every corner. Everything we saw was accentuated in heightened colour and Bali was more unexpected, more surprising than anywhere else I’ve ever been. The spiders I saw there were bigger than my hands, the insects buzzing about us were more frenzied, the lizards on every wall would shimmy out of my eyeline with each step I took. The dragonflies humming above the water, like this one, were plump and arrestingly cherry red. It was difficult to creep up close enough for a decent view, but eventually I managed to keep my movements slow enough and this specimen wasn’t spooked.
Rather like the fruit I wrote about a few days ago, I am always excited by the prospect of discovering something alien and new; it makes me feel like an explorer, discovering new species for myself and documenting them so I can identify them later.
– Today Rosie is organising and tidying in Glasgow, Scotland –
