Monday 19 September 2011

A sunny afternoon Kayaking on the flashes - Dragons every where

I got in from work today and as there was a blue sky and plenty of sun and due to being away for a week I decided to go kayaking on the flashes to see any seasonal changes had effected the reeds and birds in the area. After setting up my kayak and getting on the water the amount of Birds was noticeable there were plenty of wild Mallards and a few waders were present on the muddy banks also under the waters surface the Carp were very active. There were lots of Dragonflies patrolling the reed beds flying back and forward mating and seeing off rivals. They were very hard to get close to as soon as I got near them they would be off even creating the smallest ripple would disturb the Dragonflies. I managed to get a metre away and got a few shots of this Migrant Hawker landing on the reeds.
I have learnt lots about Dragonflies this year but one thing seems apparent especially the fact that a certain species would appear in groups in meadows throughout the end of summer and each day depending on the sun and temperature lots of each species would appear to hunt on the insects and breed then lay eggs in the stream that flows through the meadow.

Thanks for reading

Mike

3 comments:

  1. Hi Mike, your dragon is Migrant Hawker. There are very few, only about 5 records of Southern Migrant Hawker in the UK.
    Cheers Stewart.

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  2. Thanks for that, Whats the difference between them?

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  3. Its the 'golf tee' on the thorax. Yellow on Migrant H and Blue on Southern. Southern has more spots and no yellow at all.

    S...

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