Super Southern Session!

With some lovely warm sunshine forecast for yesterday afternoon and more importantly, light winds, I couldn't help but visit Oare Marshes again to look for and hopefully photograph the Southern Migrant Hawkers. I have made a number of visits in the past couple of weeks to this site to see this species and it seems that they are having another good year with 17 Southern Migrant Hawkers seen during the visit (13 east hide path and 4 west hide path). Included in these observations were one pair in tandem and watched flying down into the reeds low down to no doubt oviposit. Another pair were seen later on mating where I was able to creep up and capture a number of photos which I shall publish in due coarse. It was one of those sessions that we all look forward too. The weather was good and the hawkers were showing superbly in the afternoon light. I spent quite a while on the East hide path studying and attempting flight shots with certain degrees of success and showing passers by these stunning dragonflies. When I ventured over to the West hide path, I found a couple of individuals showing well in a quite dried up area but more importantly, I was able to get into a few good positions and fire off a good few shots, in fact around 400 shots were taken. Over on the West side, I barely saw anyone for a few hours... it was heaven! I made time to have a snack and drink every now and then and just sat back and watched the hawkers occasionally meet each other where they would then fly off at speed over the grasses, only to return at great speed a few seconds later. Occasionally, one of the Southern Migrant Hawkers would land which enabled me to again move in closer and take a few perched shots. I'm sure these will also be posted in the next week. With flight shots, perched shots and a mating pair photographed, I decided late afternoon to call it a day but as I was leaving, I found a male Norfolk Hawker on one of the ditches patrolling up and down and occasionally landing. I'm not sure if this is a reserve first but it's the first one I've seen here. A great ending to a superb session. I could have chosen so many photos but below is a taster to one of my best sessions this year.  

 

Southern Migrant Hawker (Aeshna affinis) - male