Apologies for the poor quality but this was my latest rescue from the pond yesterday. Sadly he died a short time later.
In some species the adults only live a few days anyway.
They spend much longer in their ferocious aquatic larval state, don’t they? I have an idea Konrad Lorenz wrote about it, completely fascinating.
Yes the ferocious looking ones that eventually climb out of the water and up a stalk of grass or reed. Then split open and fly away leaving the, still ferocious looking, empty case behind.
Perhaps this one was spent anyway then, he spent no less than 11 minutes on my finger, I couldn’t get rid of him. I first met him when I had just descended into the pond and was clearing up leaves with the hand net. He landed on my shoulder with a light buzzing sound and, startled, I swept him off quickly. He was struggling on the surface so I scooped him up with the net and allowed him to climb onto the side from where, after a few minutes, he flew away. I had my swim and had just climbed out and started to dry myself when I saw him again, on the surface, struggling again. I took him down to the house in order to grab the camera, but, with only one hand free it could only be the basic GoPro, hence the poor quality. I finally got him to crawl onto a fly swatter and jammed it in the sliding window. When I returned he was still on it but gripping no more.
BTW, when I went back up to the pond to finish off, there was another one flying around, so maybe mine was not one, but two. 
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