Blue Hawker
(Aeshna cyanea)

The Blue Hawker is a large dragonfly (length: 7 cm; wingspan: 10 cm) with yellow-green and light blue marks on the abdomen and yellow-green stripes on the thorax, against a brown background. The coloured bands across abdominal segments 9 and 10 (light blue in the male ), green in the female ) are uninterrupted, a feature which distinguishes this from the other European hawker species.

Aeshna cyanea flies later in the year than most other aeshnids. Here in Italy it can be observed through early November, when its only remaining hawker company is the Migrant Hawker (Aeshna mixta).

The Blue Hawker is a fairly common species which occurs throughout much of Europe. Its favoured habitat seems to be small forest ponds and lakes, although it is also quite common in and around garden ponds.

From our own observations we'd describe Aeshna cyanea as real sun worshippers and when they're soaking up the sun's heat, they tend to be easily approachable (). When feeding, they seem to religiously follow a fixed route, flying at about a metre off the ground.

Blue Hawkers are quite inquisitive; many times we've been approached very closely, apparently just to check us out. To the unsuspecting it may be quite a shock having such a large insect hovering right in front of their eyes!

At our favourite forest pond, which is very small, we typically see only one male at the water at any one time, while the other males in the area feed or rest in the nearby bushes and trees. But then after about 30 minutes there's a 'change of the guard' and a new male takes over the pond (again for about half an hour). As a result, conflicts between males seem quite rare - how civilised!

The females are rarely seen at the water unless they're copulating or ovipositing. When they're not, they tend to seek peace, quiet and food away from the water and in treetops. Copulation seems to be a highly secretive activity for the Blue Hawker; copulas tend to fly off into the treetops immediately, well out of reach of any nosy observers with cameras. When ovipositing, the unaccompanied females simply push their eggs into mossy or grassy patches by the water's edge or insert them into rotting logs and floating wood debris.