Last Thursday was Ascension Day which is a bank holiday in The Netherlands. Most schools and companies also remain closed the Friday after Ascension Day so you can have a nice long weekend.
Since we had a few days off, we decided to go to our mobile home.

Our mobile home is located just over an our drive from our home near the edge of a forest.
The nature is lovely there. It was a few weeks ago that we went there, but all the plants and trees are much greener than last time. Nature has really exploded 😀

As always I love go grab my camera and go for some walks. Since there are a lot of flowers at the edge of the forest I took my macro gear with me.

I immediately spotted a couple of dragonflies. We have those where I live too, but these ones seemed to have quite a shorter back than the ones I normally see.

It took me a while to capture one on film since they were quite fidgety. I was following this one around for a couple of minutes, but every time I snuck closer it flew away again.
But...patience is everything....

I've looked it up in my Obsidentify app and it seems to be a Four-Spotted chaser. In the photo above you can clearly see the four spots (I actually see eight) and the chasing has more to do with me chasing him I guess 😂

A bit further on I saw a Peacock butterfly land on the ground. It was a bit windy so it kept it's beautiful coloured wings together. But the camouflage pattern on the other side of its wings is quite pretty as well I think.

I got in even closer to take a shot. It's so cool you can see the 'fur' and the compound eyes look so cool!

Another little critter I found was this soldier beetle. With it's nice combination of black and red it was easy to spot on the green foliage.

This last beetle was determined as a garden chafer. I has a brown shield on its back, but near its head its a sort of shiny black/green. Really beautiful when the sun shines.

This last photo is one from behind the scenes; FriendlyMoose in action 😂. My wife shot this one through the window of our mobile home when I was looking for insects.
She did ask me why I was spying on the neighbours 😂