Water Snake next to flowering Water Lily in our garden pond

The Water snakes in our garden are usually very shy and seldom show themselves more that a few seconds, but the other day one of them swam around between the water lilies for a few minutes and I had time to get my Canon camera and a 300mm lens, and take a few photos before it disappeared again.
At the same time one the big egg laying dragonfly - background and reflections almost perfect. It was hard to choose the target for the photos - I knew that it would only last for a few second more, but I got a few photos. Here they are:


Snake in paradise.
Red Water lily and European Water Snake.
The Water Snake (Natrix natrix) is also called European Grass Snake or Ringed Snake. This reptile sometimes swim between the Water lilies (Nymphaeaceae) in our garden pond in Arnakke, Denmark.


Blue Emperor Dragonfly (Anax emperator) laying egg in a garden pond near Arnakke, Vestsjælland (Denmark).

Both photos are uploaded to Panoramio / Google Earth photos by Allan Hansen. They are not likely to be selected for Google Earth as they are not landscape photos, but I hope they can be found on Google image search.

More pictures of snakes, water lilies and dragonflies can be seen on my gallery Garden pond photos