Joined The 'Southern' Club At Last!

With photos being posted online over the past few weeks of Southern Migrant Hawkers, It felt like I was the only person who had not seen this species this year so when a few were reported nearby at Seasalter, I decided on a visit last weekend. Arriving Sunday afternoon in quite cloudy conditions at 3pm, I made my way to the dried up pools where very quickly I could see 2 Southern Migrant Hawkers on territory flying up and down the ditch and pausing occasionally to hover. I was soon in photo mode and set about quickly watching where they were stopping to hover and moved in slowly to a good position. I was able to fire off a few initial shots and after checking the setting every now and then which were constantly changing due to the cloudy skies, I was then able to acquire a few more pleasing efforts. There were only occasional sunshine which immediately made them quite active but they soon vanished when the sun went in. I assumed that they must be going to ground somewhere in the dried up ditch so took a slow walk checking all likely areas. I eventually found a male which looked a little battle scarred but beggars can't be chooses at this point so made the most of a few photo opportunities. It seemed quite settled and I was able to creep in a little closer and capture those stunning blue eyes and markings. With the sun unlikely to make another appearance soon, I called it a day and left quite happy that I had at least seen this species this year. I also saw 2 Scarce Emerald Damselfly there. With the summer holidays starting tomorrow (yippeee) I'm hopeful of a few visits to a few Kent sites to photograph the species I encounter. Fingers crossed, I see a few more Southern Migrant Hawkers to study and photograph. 

Southern Migrant Hawker (Aeshna affinis) - male