Norfolk Hawker Exuviae

Readers of this blog will know that during the flight season of the Norfolk Hawker at Westbere, I have spent the past 3 years trying to find and collect an exuviae of this species for my collection. I get just as excited finding these as I do photographing the adults. I have put in many hours of searching through reeds to no avail but yesterday at Westbere Lakes, my luck was to change when my attention was caught as a Hairy Dragonfly flew up the ditch. As I lost it to view, I pulled back some reeds and was amazed to see a hawker exuviae clinging to the reeds about 20cm above the water line. I had a good look through the binoculars and could clearly see it was no Hairy Dragonfly or Emperor Dragonfly and at this point, my thought started to turn that this could be a Norfolk Hawker exuviae. There are not many other species it could be so before trying to remove it, I took a few photos of it in position and then set about trying to remove it carefully.

Norfolk Hawker Exuviae (male)

As I studied it in the hand I knew one of the clinching features was the length of the cerci which are approximately two thirds the length of the paraprocts. A look through the hand lens seemed to suggest that this definitely had this feature and so quite abruptly, the session ended and I made my way home with my possible gold medal.

Cerci at least two thirds of the Paraprocts

On returning home, I spent a while looking at the features required including the shorter, broader mask compared to some other hawkers.

Norfolk Hawker Exuviae Mask

The size of the exuviae seemed to fit well with what the literature said but I could not see the shape of the epiproct, another key feature to look for. I was now pretty convinced that my 3 years of searching for a Norfolk Hawker exuviae had ended but to make sure, I sent a few photos to the British Dragonfly Society who kindly passed them on to Steve Cham, an expert in this field. They soon contacted me back to let me know that Steve did indeed think this was a Norfolk Hawker exuviae. I can tell you that I was more than pleased with my find and in my opinion, it was like winning a gold medal. Its now been put carefully in my collection where on a few occasions, I have had to look at it to actually realise that I have at last found one. Hopefully this species will have a good season at Westbere and I will be able to obtain a few nice images and who knows, perhaps another exuviae will come my way when I continue my search for them. 

Norfolk Hawker Exuviae (male) side view

Norfolk Hawker Exuviae (male) underside

Norfolk Hawker Exuviae (male) side view