'Newly Emerged' Hairy Dragonfly

Hairy Dragonfly

Brachyton pratense

I was just about to sit down and watch the television last night about 8pm when I quickly checked the pond to see if anything was happening. One of the Hairy Dragonfly nymphs had started to climb up the reed so I prepared the equipment and settled in for what I thought would be a good few hours. The nymph got into position and spent the next 30 minutes stationary. I took a few photos and hoped as this was a male, that I could capture the whole emergence again but when it started tail thrashing to make sure there was enough room to emerge, he fell off back into the water. I went back inside again and checked a little later to see he had started his climb again. Like before, he prepared himself only to fall back in the water again. With the time getting on, the best I could hope for was an early start and hoped that he would emerge early morning. I was up this morning at 4am and was soon at the pond to reveal that the nymph was still at the base of the reeds. I spent the next 90 minutes sitting outside in the hope that it would happen but alas, no movement from him. A couple of Chaser nymphs however looked like they were getting ready in the shallows and kept me occupied but not even they wanted to emerge. I decided at this point to go out birding for a while to Nethergong and asked my daughter to keep me informed when she got up in case there was any action. It was quite predictable I suppose when at 9am, I received a video call from Jasmine showing me that the Hairy Dragonfly had just emerged, typical! I was soon back in the car and arrived home 10 minutes later where I spent the next 30 minutes at the pond taking a number of pleasing photos of the male Hairy Dragonfly and exuviae. The light was superb, the wind was barely blowing and it was just a privilege to spend time observing and photographing this superb dragonfly. It was already quite warm by 9.30am and after a bit of wing buzzing , he lifted off to hopefully complete his life. I was very pleased I managed to make it for some photos, not quite the full emergence sequence I was after but to capture the dragonfly and exuviae together more than made up for it. Hopefully the Chaser nymphs will be next at some point during the week. I just hope I can photograph them before going to work. 

'Teneral' male Hairy Dragonfly

Marc Heath