Rare County Dragons: Oxon Norfolk Hawker

Norfolk Hawker, as you may guess from the name, is traditional associated with East Anglia and has up until now been confined to east Norfolk around the Broads area. Indeed, I made a special trip to Strumpshaw Fen back in 2016 where I saw my only one (along with Swallowtail Butterfly and Scarce Chaser). So when last year JD photographed one at RSPB Otmoor in Oxon, it was a very unusual record. It seemed to be a one-off sighting as there were no further reports of it and to my knowledge no one attempted to twitch it. 

Fast forward to this year and last Friday evening  GC found a Norfolk Hawker on the Blenheim estate at Woodstock. It was frequenting a small area at the end of a side arm of the main lake where GC watched it for just a minutes, allowing him time to grab some photos to clinch the ID. Whilst this was certainly interesting, the fact that it hadn't been found until after 6pm and that it was only seen for a short period of time meant that, as far as I was concerned, it wasn't worth trying to twitch it. Still it had piqued my interest enough for me to wonder whether it was worth trying to find it the next day. 

Come Saturday morning, with the rest of the family out for the day I thought about what I wanted to do. In the end I opted for visiting Radley Lakes to try to catch up with some Lesser Emperor dragonflies, which after last year's invasion, were being seen regularly at this site along with others in the county. I was half way around the main lake there, having just seen one briefly so far when news came through on the local WhatsApp message chat that GC had refound the Norfolk Hawker in the same place. I messaged him for details and then hurried back to the car to head off to Blenheim which was about half an hour away. He told me that it was quicker and quieter to park up at Combe Lodge gate and the walk in from there. I hurried off and negotiated the fairly light traffic and the winding back roads that lead up to Combe Lodge. It was another baking hot day though once I'd passed through the gate and entered the cool of the wood it was much more pleasant. It had been a few years since I'd been to this end of the Blenheim estate and I enjoyed the quiet coolness of the woodland as I walked towards the location. 

I had wondered how easy it might be to find the target on my own but in the end I needn't have worried as GC was still there, standing by the metal gate where he has instructed me to go. As soon as I arrived he pointed it out to me. It was by far the nearest dragonfly, patrolling steadily up and down within about 5 yards of the gate. It's flight was rather measured and steady and it was easy to pick out the salient features even in the air. The green eyes at the end of the otherwise brown Hawker-sized body along with the clear wings were immediately obvious. During the three quarters of an hour that I was there it was constantly on show and constantly flying. GC told me that it had only just started to do this shortly before I arrived and had been only intermittently on view prior to that.

The Norfolk Hawker in flight courtesy of Gareth Cashburn

Looking around there were various other large dragonflies: several Emperors and Brown Hawkers were about though they were always much more distant. GC told me that the Norfolk Hawker had been very aggressively defending that area over the reeds by the gate so I guess the others species had learned to stay away. GC told me that he thought that there might in fact be two of them and this was later confirmed by photographs though I never saw more than the one.

The Norfolk Hawker site - it liked to patrol over the near reedbed

After a while I decided to head over to the main lake to look for Lesser Emperors. GC had seen several yesterday on the Main Lake by Rosamund's Well. We headed over there together in the increasing heat and spent some time looking. We found a couple though they were very distant right out in the middle of the lake and there were no photo opportunities. GC had to leave so I headed back to the Norfolk Hawker site. There was no initial sign of it though after about 10 minutes it was suddenly buzzing around again in the same area. Apparently, this species is known for settling and staying still for much longer than most Hawker species which are usually constantly on the wing. I watched it for a little while longer before headed back towards the car, out of the heat into the coolness of the woodland once more. 

A perched photo of the Norfolk Hawker, taken the next day courtesy of Ewan Urquhart

 

The Norfolk Hawker was subsequently reported for a few more days but not seen at all the following weekend. However, JD went and found one at Otmoor - was it starting to establish itself in the county? With Southern Migrant Hawker, Lesser Emperor and Willow Emerald all having recently colonised the county it seemed that Norfolk Hawker too could become a county regular. Certainly I look forward to further encounters with this species in the county.