Catching up with 'Green Eyes'

With the Norfolk Hawker season slowly starting to come to an end for another year and the promise of nice warm sunny weather after work, I decided on a quick visit to check out their situation. However the weather had other ideas and as I pulled up, it started to rain followed by thunder and lightning. A check of the weather suggested cloudless blue skies. Again, how wrong they were, what a surprise! It slowly passed over but remained quite cloudy with only occasional brief sunny spells but even these soon disappeared. I wandered on and reaching the dykes near the river, checked them out for a perching hawker but no luck. I walked along the river where it was a bit more sheltered and reaching a good area for them, I spent some time searching. I soon found the first of 3 Norfolk Hawkers, two here and one back in the dykes on the way back. They were continually flying up and down along the river but too far for photos and they were occasionally joined by 2 Brown Hawkers. No doubt the Brown Hawker challenge will begin soon but I happily spent some time thinking about the life the Norfolk Hawkers have had this year. Two years ago they were eggs laid in the dykes I would imagine and over that time have managed to dodge all kinds of predators until they nearly reached the top of the food chain under water. Hopefully they have continued this cycle and will continue to flourish in this area as well as spread to new areas within the South East. No photos taken today but hopefully this will not be my last encounter with this species this year and I can get another visit in soon but here are a few photos taken in the past few sessions. 

Norfolk Hawker (male)