大象传媒

Most damselflies are named after their colours, but different groups of dragonflies are named according to the way they hunt or fly. Mind you, if they are hunting and flying you don鈥檛 get much of a view. There are chasers which chase after their prey and usually keep returning to the same perch. Then there鈥檚 darters which dart around between perches - hyperactive little things they are. The skimmers skim low over the water. Then there are the hawkers - big dragonflies that spend most of their time higher up, hawking after other flying insects. There鈥檚 one very special hawk around here that Bill Oddie really wants to see: the Norfolk hawker found only in east Anglia, especially in ditches like these with a spiky plant called water soldier. They are quite handsome really with lovely green eyes. That one is obviously a female because it鈥檚 laying eggs down in the spear of the water soldier, as it were. There鈥檚 probably several males patrolling this ditch - they each have quite well marked territories and spend a lot of their time just chasing each other off. Or hawking each other off, to coin a phrase.