I went for a walk around Gosforth Nature Reserve yesterday afternoon with friends Kate & David who were passing through Newcastle on their way north. Half way round the reserve we saw a large dragonfly with brown wings which could only be a brown hawker, but we were looking into the sun and I didn't have a camera so it was difficult to be sure. As the weather was good I went back this morning and in over two hours and over 300 photos I had just these four worth keeping.
These photos were hard won as I was shooting into the sun and the dragonfly was always on the move. They do confirm it is a male brown hawker (Aeshna grandis), a rare record for the North East and a first for the reserve. Unlike other hawkers it never hovered and on the few times it rested it was always out of view in the reeds. So the only photos I could get were flight shots. (I use manual mode, 1/1000s at f/6.3 with auto ISO and manual focus.)
Brown hawkers are found through most of central, southern and eastern England but they are rare in the south west and the north and in Wales.
Although there are brown hawker records from Northumberland they are very few and the only validated record I can find for the last 20 years is mine from Wallington two years ago. By coincidence the British Dragonfly Society's report on the State of Dragonflies in Britain and Ireland 2021 was published this week. The good news is that more species are doing well than are declining. Reasons for increasing occupancy and species richness include increased recording intensity (ie more people submitting more records), restoration and creation of habitat, and rising temperatures from climate change. This is the report's page on brown hawker.
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