Crockford Bottom, New Forest

We decided to pretend I've still got annual leave, so off we went walking again, this time to Crockford Bottom in the New Forest.

This was also the first time we were specifically looking for dragonflies, even though the field guide I ordered hadn't yet arrived. So we were 'flying blind' so to speak, especially as internet signal in the New Forest can be very patchy. 

First dragonfly we saw stumped us, as it didn't look like any of the pictures I'd seen before setting out. Took a photo to see if we could figure it out at home (sorry for the bad quality; phone camera had trouble focusing), but that didn't get us very far either ... Common darter???

The aea was rather boggy, with various larger and smaller ponds. Some other ponds had mostly dried up.

We saw common darters at several ponds, and the final pond had a single female emperor dragonfly ovipositing. So two dragonfly species today, both new to us!

In terms of butterflies we didn't see many species, but it was nice to see a few more graylings disappearing. Two tables this time (one  = 1; few = 2-4; several = 5-9; many = 10+).

Update 7/9/2020: I joined the British Dragonflies and Damselflies Facebook group upon coming home, and posted the photo of the 'mystery dragonfly' there. The verdict was that it was an old female keeled skimmer, and that means we saw three new species; I've updated the table.