Hanging Hawkers

With sunrise around 5.45am this morning, I had hoped to get up before this and see if I could find any damselflies to create a nice sunrise photo but I encountered just one problem, I didn't wake up until 5.50am so with this I got ready and drove over to a site near Reculver to see what was about. The sun was already up when I arrived but there was a chill in the air as the mist lifted off the water. I was soon seeing Common Blue and Blue tailed Damselflies rising out of the grasses as I walked through as well as a few Common Emerald Damselfly. I had hoped to find a resting Emperor Dragonfly but I only saw one which didn't hang around at all but I did see a few Common and Ruddy Darter. As the sun got a little higher I decided to go and look for some Migrant Hawkers and hoped that some of the males would have matured up and be in fine condition. I was soon checking the bushes and found 5 Migrant Hawkers with a few males perching up nice and low providing me with some pleasing photographic opportunities. Although warm enough, they seemed content in sitting in the sun and wasn't bothered about my presence as I moved around them and took a few images from different angles. I found a few with slightly less cluttered backgrounds which made for a more pleasing photo to the eye and spent a while just studying them from close range looking at all the details. With some photos in the bag I moved on where walking out, I saw a couple of Black tailed Skimmer to end the session. I'm hoping soon to find an accommodating male Migrant Hawker in flight to get some photos of. They do like to hover well and its always a good challenge to capture them in flight. Maybe later in the week will deliver the goods!

Migrant Hawker (male)