Huge heat is bringing out huge dragonflies! Jan Shields has found the first evidence of Southern Hawker emerging from her pond and these photos show the diagnostic long shape of the mask on the underside of the exuvia. Common Hawker has also been seen on the wing really early on 2nd June in the south of the county and Common Darter has been spotted by Geoff Hall at Brokenstones- the teneral female seen below. Emperors are putting in many appearances; Geoff caught this great inflight shot and also a female ovipositing under close inspection of a damselfly which often seems to happen. Jonathan Cartwright also took this lovely photo of a female ovipositing on Cleehill. With so much heat and so many records coming in there are some fabulous shots and I couldn’t resist including the female Broad-bodied Chaser in flight and a photo of a pair of Large Red Damselflies. These were also taken by Geoff and the damselfly pair illustrate really well the difference in thickness of abdomen between males (above) and females (below).
