Hampshire Dragonflies and Damselflies - Ober Water 29th June

In really hot and humid conditions during the UK's second heatwave of the year I wandered Ober Water looking for White-legged Damselfly and Scarce Blue-tailed Damselfly. The stream was absolutely heaving with Odonata and despite the heat it was an amazing location with Beautiful Demoiselle, White-legged Damselfly, Large Red Damselfly, Small Red Damselfly, Southern Damselfly, Azure Damselfly, Scarce Blue-tailed Damselfly, Red-eyed Damselfly, Emperor Dragonfly, Gold-ringed Dragonfly, Downy Emerald and Keeled Skimmer being recorded - 12 species in total. Of my targets, White-legged Damselfly was present in abundance with many mating pairs while Scarce Blue-tailed Damselfly was only seen in one small area (centred around 50.834124, -1.638628) with three males present. I was pleased to get back to the air conditioned car!

Beautiful Demoselle or the rare Hampshire Purslane

Small Red-eyed Damselfly

Large Red Damselfly

Downy Emerald - A rare view of a perched individual

White-legged Damselfly

White-legged Damselfly

Blue-tailed Damselfly

Scarce Blue-tailed Damselfly

Scarce Blue-tailed Damselfly

Hampshire Dragonflies - Hatchet Moor and Crockford Bridge 10th June

With a good selection of the spring butterflies under my belt it was time for me to head to a couple of New Forest sites to get my Hampshire Odonata list underway in my quest to see all the regular butterfly and Odonata species in the county.

I started at Hatchet Small Pond to the south of the main Hatchet Pond where the only new species for the year was Black-tailed Skimmer, but I did also see Azure Damselfly, Large Red Damselfly, Common Blue Damselfly and Blue-tailed Damselfly.

Black-tailed Skimmer

Black-tailed Skimmer

Large Red Damselfly

Blue-tailed Damselfly - Note the red mite on top of the abdomen and the line of dark coloured mites on the underside of the abdomen.

Common Blue Damselfly

I then headed to Crockford Bridge, a classic New Forest Odonata site, but by now it was a little cloudy and the wind had really gathered strength and so it was not easy finding species. However, after a little while I saw Southern Damselfly, Beautiful Demoiselle, Broad-bodied Chaser, Keeled Skimmer and a glimpse of a probable Gold-ringed Dragonfly but it was swept away by the wind before I could be sure. The walk back to the car produced my first Silver-studded Blue of the year and an Emperor Dragonfly.

Male Keeled Skimmer

Immature male Keeled Skimmer

Egg laying female Broad-bodied Chaser

Beautiful Demoiselle

Beautiful Demoiselle

Beautiful Demoiselle

The highly localised Southern Damselfly

Southern Damselfly

A stunning male Silver-studded Blue

Pennington Marsh and Denny Wood - 8th June

After dropping Tobias at school I spent a short amount of time at Pennington Marsh and Denny Wood. At Pennington it was fairly quiet with most birds settled down to breed. I recorded eight Reed Warbler and six Whitethroat on territory around the loop that extends from Lower Pennington Lane car park to the Jetty and then back around between Butts and Fishtail Lagoon - numbers appear to be marginally down on previous years. A Cuckoo sang from the scrub to the north of Jetty Lagoon, this bird seemingly settled on territory. On the mudflats were 12 Eider and two Whimbrel. On Fishtail Lagoon there were two Little Tern, four Avocet, three Spoonbill, a single Black-tailed Godwit, 15 Dunlin and two Teal. A short walk around Denny Wood produced nine Redstart and a pair of Garden Warbler with a well grown, fledged chick. I have always struggled with separating the song of Garden Warbler and Blackcap, but having spent some time with the singing bird today at Denny Wood (see recordings here) I think I have the differences settled in my head.

Female Beautiful Demoiselle - Denny Wood

Avocet - Pennington Marsh

Avocet - Pennington Marsh

Common Tern - Pennington Marsh

Common Tern - Pennington Marsh

Church Norton, Titchfield Haven and Crockford Bridge - 4th July

I had not had a chance to go birding for an age, mainly saving my brownie points for an upcoming trip, but I had the morning spare and there were a couple of local rare's that had been present for some time and I had to go and see them. My greatest success was the Greater Yellowlegs at Titchfield, I had seen this a couple of times before but on both occasions my views were somewhat distant and I came away thinking that these needed to be improved. So when I arrived and the bird was feeding on the Meon and visible from the road I was pleased. The bird showed well for around an hour feeding on crabs and small shrimps in the shallows. The bird is now moulting with many of its wing feathers being replaced but it still looked pretty dapper in its monochrome checked and streaked plumage and those crazy yellow legs.

Greater Yellowlegs - Good views at long last

Greater Yellowlegs with young Shore Crab

Greater Yellowlegs - The bird mainly fed along the shoreline but also waded up to its knees where it frequently fed with a sweeping motion a bit like an Avocet 

Back tracking now, I had arrived at Church Norton early in the hope of seeing the Hudsonian Whimbrel that had been present since 9th June, I stupidly forgot to pack my scope but when I picked up a distant Whimbrel and got a nearby birder with a scope onto it that whacking supercilium and dark rump gave the bird away as the Hudsonian Whimbrel. Unfortunately the bird disappeared into a gully and I did not see it again in two hours of waiting. Still, a leucistic Curlew added some interest - again through somewhat distant in the heat haze.

Curlew - A rather odd looking leucistic bird

I then had to pick up my sister from the IOW ferry but had an hour or so to spare so popped into Crockford Bridge to look for some dragonflies.

Beautiful Demoiselle

Beautiful Demoiselle

Southern Damselfly

Southern Damselfly on Marsh St. John's Wort

Keeled Skimmer

Large Red Damselfly