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 Crockford Bridge - 28th July

After some long hours working over the last couple of weeks I took a couple of hours off in the early morning and went to Pennington Marsh. I have not been to the marsh since the end of April and so a visit was long overdue. I walked out past Shoveler Pools and then back around Jetty and Butts Lagoons before heading back to the car. The weather was terrible, a strong westerly wind and heavy showers and so my visit was brief to say the least. I think most of the birds were sheltering and I saw relatively little. Around 25 Sand Martin were moving westwards into the wind, around 30 Black-tailed Godwit were on the lagoons, two Common Sandpiper, 15 Whitethroat, 75 Dunlin, a few Grey Plover in fine summer plumage and a Spoonbill on Butts Lagoon was about all I saw. I made a dash for the car and was soaked.

Black-tailed Godwit - Now in heavy moult

Black-tailed Godwit - This is a very warn winter plumage bird that had not 

moulted to summer plumage

Black-headed Gull - Now moulting to winter plumage

Black-headed Gull - A juvenile mouthing to 1st winter

Cormorant

Rock Samphire

Bank of rain approaching, it was very wet and windy and felt more like November than late July

Grey Plover - Fantastic birds in summer plumage

Spoonbill

As I left the weather brightened slightly and I decided to pop into Crockford Bridge in the hope of finding some sheltering Odonata - perhaps ridiculously optimistically. I wandered for around 50m east from the road and fairly quickly found a couple of Southern Damselfly and a Blue-tailed Damselfly but with more rain approaching I decided to head for the office.

Blue-tailed Damselfly

Southern Damselfly

Small Copper

Brown China-mark

Hampshire Purslane

Round-leaved Sundew

Ober Water & Silver Water, New Forest - 7th July

I had a spare morning and so decided to head into the New Forest to try and see Scarce Blue-tailed Damselfly, a species I had tried for in the forest last year but failed to see. I tried Ober Water, a well known site for the species, parking at the Puttles Bridge car park south of the Rhinefield Hotel at SU271029. I then walked west along the Ober Water for around 2km, it was pretty tough going through heathland and bog and I was unsuccessful in my quest but did see a range of species including Beautiful Demoiselle, Gold-ringed Dragonfly, Keeled Skimmer, White-legged Damselfly, Small Red Damselfly, Large Red Damselfly, Black Darter and many Silver-studded Blue.

Female Keeled Skimmer - Ober Water, New Forest

Silver-studded Blue - Ober Water, New Forest

Silver-studded Blue - Ober Water, New Forest

Teneral Black Darter - Ober Water, New Forest

Small Red Damselfly - Ober Water, New Forest

Large Red Damselfly - Ober Water, New Forest

Female White-legged Damselfly - Ober Water, New Forest

Male White-legged Damselfly - Ober Water, New Forest

I then went onto Silver Water which flows south-west from the Puttles Bridge car park, this is also meant to be a good area for Scarce Blue-tailed Damselfly and, in hindsight, the habitat close to Rhinefield Road appears suitable but I had no luck. I added Southern Damselfly and Azure Damselfly to the list of species for the morning.

Southern Damselfly - Silver Water, New Forest

Azure Damselfly - Silver Water, New Forest

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