I was back in the Beinn Eighe area looking for the Scottish Dragonflies I hadn't seen. By late-morning, I had been given directions behind the Beinn Eighe Visitor's Centre, for some flying Azure Hawkers and Northern Emeralds. They were generally flying high, but had come down to ground level as it cooled down on the previous afternoon. It sounded like it could be a long wait. The first Dragonfly species I saw along the track were a couple of Highland Darters. This had been a bonus, as I wasn't expecting them to be flying until the end of the month. The next Dragonfly was a showy Golden-ringed Dragonfly.
I was watching the area with John Rayner: a Manchester-based Birder and Dragonfly watcher. There were one or two Hawkers occasionally appearing in flight around the Conifer tree tops. After about twenty minutes, we saw one land in a small Conifer about two feet off the ground. It stayed long enough to grabbed some photos. Unfortunately, it decided it get back on the wing before we had the chance to get a bit closer. At the time, we thought it looked good for an Azure Hawker. However, the following day, John showed the photo to others and then the Western Ross Dragonfly Recorder, who confirmed it was a blue form Female Common Hawker.
A few minutes after seeing this Hawker, Sean Browne and his mate Nige appeared. I hadn't seen Sean since the Atlantic Odyssey trip in 2018 and it was good to catch up with him again. They had managed to see a perched Northern Emerald, as well as, several other high-flying Emeralds, but no Azure Hawkers. We carried on looking for the next couple of hours. At one point, two Hawkers got into an aerial tussle which resulted in both ending up at ground level. One just managed to avoid the bushes. I managed to get a photo of it before it disappeared: it proved to be a Common Hawker. The second ended up crashing into the bushes and I managed to carefully grab it before it recovered. This was another Common Hawker.
Having thought I had seen both of the Hawkers in this part of the Highlands, I was focusing on the high-flying Emeralds: which I will cover in the next Blog Post.