Brown hawkers are large, strong flying, light brown insects with yellowish-green stripes on their sides and wings that are tinted amber, making them very noticeable in flight.
Brown hawkers also have huge green-brown eyes drooping from the sides of their skulls, a common dragonfly trait. In fact, dragonflies have the largest compound eyes of any insect, with up to 30,000 facets! Each facet points in a slightly different direction, creating a mosaic of partially overlapping images. This means that dragonflies can pretty well see in all directions at the same time.
I saw this hawker chasing mosquitoes in my backyard but I had to be patient to get a good shot. I was surprised at how agile it is and how fast it moves and that it didn’t alight for long periods of time. When it finally stopped, I got close and took 8 shots in a row (abt 2 seconds) and then it was gone.
For this pic, I used my 105 mm macro at ISO 4oo, shooting handheld at 1/400th sec at f/7.1. If you have any questions, contact me at rob@robwiebe.com
Oh, look — me again!
Your friend looks like it’s wearing fava beans for sunglasses.
Q: Do the different colours of their eyes denote anything? Meaning, is there a difference in viewing power (range?) when their eyes are red or blue, rather than fava bean?
To quote you: For this comment, I used my two hands at warp speed, shooting wrist-held across my assy keyboard.
You’re right about the beans and I don’t think there’s a difference in viewing power depending on the colour. Tho I did read that dragonflies can see colours that are beyond our visual capabilities, such as ultraviolet light.
And FTR, you’re not quoting me – ur mocking me