Aesna affinis or Blue-eyed Hawker is one of the smaller hawkers in our area. It somewhat resembles Aeshna mixta (Southern Hawker) in size and colours but the side of the thorax lacks most of A. mixta‘s dark markings, the markings on the abdomen are larger and the frons is white, giving an overall more brightly coloured impression.
Blue-eyed Hawkers are found in southern and central Europe, north-west Africa and east across Asia all the way to China and Mongolia. It’s a migrant species that tends to spread northwards with warm and dry weather and winds from the south.
in and around Europe
