Norfolk Hawker in Flight

With some afternoon sunshine and a light breeze forecast for yesterday (Thursday), I thought these would be ideal conditions for a visit to Grove Ferry to see the Norfolk Hawkers and attempt my annual challenge of trying to capture some flight shots of this species. Like the Migrant Hawker, the Norfolk Hawker is one of the species that will readily hover when on territory long enough some times for the photographer to fire off a few shots. I have seen over the past few years that at the start of their season, they don't tend to hover for that long but as the season moves on, they do seem to spend longer times hovering. I'm sure that the wind strength and weather also dictates this behaviour. I arrived at 1:30pm with the sun just starting to come through and it wasn't long until I reached the ditch in question where a walk up and down in the next few hours provided nice perched and flight views of 12+ Norfolk Hawker. There are quite a few factors as I have mentioned before if you are going to try to capture some flight shots: a willing subject that regularly hovers, light breeze to help them out, sun with a bit of cloud to prevent harsh photos, clear unobstructed views, correct camera settings and always checking the light speed, pleasing background colour to contrast against subject, quick focussing to lock on to subject, I always use manual focus... and then just click and hope! Thankfully, most of these factors seemed to work for me today and I was able to find a few male Norfolk Hawkers which did indeed show well and allowed me to fire off some pleasing photos.

 

Norfolk Hawker (Aeshna isosceles) - male

 

Using a Canon f4 300mm lens, I have to work quickly and getting the subject at a perpendicular angle to the camera is always quite challenging as they seem to always slightly be at an angle. Having said that, I am quite pleased with these efforts which show off this species well in flight.

 

Norfolk Hawker (Aeshna isosceles) - male

 

Still more work to be done to improve though and maybe next time, I might try the Sigma 150mm macro lens if they are close enough and showing well. A cracking few hours spent in this stunning species company watching and admiring them. also seen were c10+ Hairy Dragonfly, 2 Emperor Dragonfly, 2 Black tailed Skimmer and good numbers around of Variable, Azure, Blue tailed, Common and Red eyed Damselfly. fingers crossed for some nice weather over the weekend as I feel I may well return!

 

Norfolk Hawker (Aeshna isosceles) - male