Migrant Hawker (Aeshna mixta) Emerging

Over the past couple of years, I have set myself the challenge to photograph a few species emerging, one being the Migrant Hawker. With a good number of exuviae found this year at one of the ponds at Nethergong and even a Migrant Hawker watched emerging with a group of campers, I felt that this year was as good as any to achieve this small milestone. I have therefore visited Nethergong on a few warm windless evenings over the past week at dusk and looked for signs of any nymphs thinking about emerging. A few nights ago, I could see a few nymphs in the shallows and hoped that if I kept visiting, I would be able to photograph an emergence. Last night, I arrived at dusk and went to the area where I had seen a few nymphs resting and was surprised to see a couple half out of he water on a reed. The only issue was that they were a good metre or so from the bank which wasn't ideal for what I wanted to do. I hatched a plan that once the nymph was settled, I would get in the water (which is quite shallow) and set up the tripod and camera ready for some action. I spent a while just waiting on the bank and checking every now and then with a light until I could see the nymph was motionless and going through the routine before it emerges. One of the nymphs had climbed quite high (c40cm) and was half clinging to a bulrush which made for a nice setting. As the dark became darker, the nymph started to emerge and the next hour or so was spent photographing each stage of the emergence. Thankfully all went well and despite being a few metres out in the water and nursing a now sore back due to constant bending, I hopefully had a new set of emergence shots of a Migrant Hawker emerging. With the car only a few seconds away, I was soon packed up and on my way home for a well earned sleep. Another superb session observing and photographing one of nature's unseen spectacles.

 

Migrant Hawker (Aeshna mixta) male emerging