The 'Hawker' Has Landed....... At Last!

With a couple of hours free early morning before going to the cinema with the kids I opted for a walk at Westbere Lakes. The plan was to try to get a few Migrant Hawker flight shots with also my eye on the Brown Hawkers should one land nearby. I arrived in sunshine around 7.30am knowing that not much would be flying at this time but thought I might have a chance of finding some resting dragonflies to photograph. As I approached the river I saw a few Banded Demoiselle and Migrant Hawker already flying which was promising and I set about trying to capture a few images in the good light. Anybody following my blog recently would know I have been after a decent photo of the Brown Hawker, in my opinion one of the hardest dragonflies to get photos of as they are very wary when settled and often don't say perched for that long. I had seen 2 Brown Hawker flying past briefly but as I walked down the path I saw one flying towards me just above the ground. It flew around me and to my amazement, settled a few metres away in the open on some blackberries in the sunshine. Surely this was my chance so literally on my belly I crawled up the path and slowly raised the camera expecting it to fly away, but it didn't! I rattled off a few shots, checking them to see if I had the settings right before once again getting some more shots.

Female Brown Hawker

At this point I thought I would sneak back to my bag and see if I could change the lens and put on the Sigma 150mm macro. I did and crawled back where she was still happily settled. I managed in the next 10 minutes or so to get a number of pleasing images of the little beauty including a few from different angles. 

Female Brown Hawker

I was able to get on my feet in the end and relieve the pins and needles and move around her quite closely taking a few shots before she had enough and continued on with her day. What a feeling of accomplishment, all the hours of walking around looking for them to settle had suddenly all been worthwhile, and to have a Brown Hawker in very good condition was a bonus as well. 

Female Brown Hawker

With time up I made my way back slowly seeing lots of Banded Demoiselle, 4 Migrant Hawker, 1 Small Red eyed Damselfly and a few Common Blue Damselfly. What I didn't expect to be much of a session certainly turned out to be a classic and to finally get and photograph my target species was a great feeling.

Female Brown Hawker