Aeshna juncea
In 3 days ~10% in a week ~20%
The common hawker, moorland hawker or sedge darner (Aeshna juncea) is one of the larger species of hawker dragonflies. It is native to Palearctic (from Ireland to Japan) and northern North America. The flight period is from June to early October.
It is 74 millimetres (2.9 in) long with a brown body. The male has a black abdomen with paired blue and yellow spots on each abdominal segment, and narrow stripes along the dorsal surface of the thorax. In the female, the abdomen is brown with yellow or sometimes green or blue spots. The wings of both sexes display a yellow costa (the major vein running along the leading edge of the wings). This species lacks the green thorax stripes of the southern hawker.
Female common hawkers will sometimes dive out of the sky and feign death in order to avoid copulating with males. Wikipedia →
| # | Park | Country | Daily sighting probability |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Mercantour National Park | 🇫🇷 France | |
| 2 | Vanoise National Park | 🇫🇷 France | |
| 3 | Cairngorms National Park | 🇬🇧 United Kingdom | |
| 4 | Aigüestortes National Park | 🇪🇸 Spain | |
| 5 | Pyrénées National Park | 🇫🇷 France | |
| 6 | Ecrins National Park | 🇫🇷 France | |
| 7 | Bavarian Forest National Park | 🇩🇪 Germany | |
| 8 | Cévennes National Park | 🇫🇷 France | |
| 9 | Rocky Mountain National Park | 🇺🇸 United States |
| # | City | Country | Daily sighting probability |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Anchorage | 🇺🇸 United States | |
| 2 | Helsinki | 🇫🇮 Finland | |
| 3 | Yekaterinburg | 🇷🇺 Russia | |
| 4 | Moscow | 🇷🇺 Russia |
Rare
Under 5% of wildlife watchers report a Sedge Darner sighting in Rocky Mountain National Park on a given day, based on 6 verified sightings from GBIF citizen-science data from 2019 to 2026. It is the 191st most-seen of the 191 insects we can rate there. Over three days the chance rises to about 10%, and over a week to about 20%, if each day is a fresh chance.
September
In that month about 10% of wildlife watchers report a Sedge Darner in Rocky Mountain National Park on a given day, against under 5% in October to August, the lowest months.
Between noon and 3 pm
Across all the parks we cover, that three-hour window holds the most Sedge Darner sightings with a recorded time, and about 9 in 10 of them come between 6 am and 6 pm: it is a daytime animal.
9th of 9
Of the 9 parks where we can rate Sedge Darner sightings, Rocky Mountain National Park ranks 9th at under 5%. The best odds are in Mercantour National Park (France, about 30%), Vanoise National Park (France, about 20%) and Cairngorms National Park (United Kingdom, about 20%).
Same genus: Aeshna
The closest relatives of the Sedge Darner that you can see in Rocky Mountain National Park (genus Aeshna, Hawkers and Typical Darners) are Paddle-Tailed Darner (about 10%) and Variable Darner (about 10%), with each one's daily chance of a sighting.
GBIF citizen-science records
It is estimated from how often the Sedge Darner is recorded against all the insects logged in Rocky Mountain National Park (6 verified sightings from 2019 to 2026), calibrated against known sighting rates. Figures are rounded to the nearest 10% because citizen-science data supports honest approximations, not decimals, and months with records from fewer than five people show "—". How it works.
