Male Hairy Dragonfly

With a few days of heavy rain forecast for Southern England early this week, I don't think there will be much dragonfly and damselfly action until later in the week when the weather looks much better. I did have another Hairy Dragonfly, a female this time emerge last night from the pond and when I went out to check this morning in the heavy drizzle around 5am, she had tucked herself in the reeds but was covered in small droplets of rain which provided me with a few photo opportunities which I shall post later in the week. I did take a number of photos last weekend of a male Hairy Dragonfly early one morning perched up on some reeds with the backdrop of the Grape Hyacinths which I think provide a really nice contrast to the subject. With May just around the corner and hopefully many sunny days ahead (my birthday on Wednesday) I have decided to give myself the challenge of trying to find and photograph a Norfolk Hawker emerging later in the month from a local site. Having looked through the internet, I cannot find any photos of Norfolk Hawkers emerging from this country and I suppose its not surprising as they are still relatively rare. I have been given permission to visit a site in late May after dark to look for them emerging and although a needle in a hay stack situation, I have a few likely spots where I suspect they may emerge from. All being well, I will spend the last few weeks of May out most evenings when the weather looks good after dark with a head torch looking for this rarely captured event. Its a tough ask but if I don't go and look, then I'm not going to succeed and as I have found out so far, if you put the time in with a bit of background knowledge, the rewards are there. I shall update nearer to the time. Hopefully another post during the week with some female Hairy Dragonfly photos with rain drops on taken this morning.

 

Hairy Dragonfly (male)