Brown Hawker
Aeshna grandis
Large size, relatively unmarked brown body and unmistakable amber wings make this one of our most distinctive dragonflies. The males have small indistinct blue dots towards the top of the abdomen.
On the wing from early July to early October, it is widespread across the county, utilising large ponds, small lakes, gravel pits and slow moving streams and ditches, preferring well vegetated waters to breed in. It is not a coloniser of new gravel pits, for example.
Due to the males territorial behaviour it is not often recorded in large numbers at one site, one male will protect an area of over 50 metres in length. As it prefers to hunt over relatively open ground it is usually found close to favoured breeding areas.
Nationally it is common throughout south-east and eastern England, north to Yorkshire and Lancashire. It is absent from Devon and Cornwall, Scotland and most of Wales.
Distribution map
