Mark Lawlor's Nature Blog

The trip finished with a full day in the New Forest, to search for rare species. I had been looking forward to this for a while and intended to give it some real effort today. I didn’t get off too early as I wanted the sun to be up, so the insects were out and about. I was lucky with the weather because, unlike the dreary day yesterday, today was fine and mostly sunny. I had plenty of gen from Andy who had visited a few times recently and I targeted three main sites today. The first location was Crockford Stream which is one of the best places in the whole country for dragonflies and damselflies, and I had three target species I wanted to tick off.

I could not park right next to the stream as the nearby car parks were closed, so I stopped about a mile away and hiked across the dry heathland without stopping. The only thing I noticed was a Red Kite overhead and was surprised by the lack of butterflies. After a mile I went off-piste and across the heather searching for the headwaters of the stream. Dropping down into a hollow I soon came across a superb wet bog, totally isolated from all roads and paths. It was a superb spot, and I could not see a soul in any direction, nor any evidence of civilisation. I felt totally isolated from all humans and it was great!

Bog above Crockford Stream, New Forest, 30 Jul 25

As soon as I reached the boggy area, there were Keeled Skimmers all over the place, a species I had never seen before. The powder-blue males were chasing and fighting each other. I didn’t see many of the brown females but I suppose they were just resting, watching the males. The skimmers pushed their wings forward when perched making them very distinctive.

Keeled Skimmer - Crockford Stream, New Forest, 30 Jul 25 - male

Keeled Skimmer - Crockford Stream, New Forest, 30 Jul 25 - female

One of the main plants here was Bog Myrtle, and Andy told me that there was a pretty rare weevil that lives on it that he’d found in this area. I swept the net at a couple of bushes and, straight away, caught two of them - Orchestes jota. It is a plain blackish weevil with a bright white spot on the back, and it only lives at a few sites in the UK, especially in the New Forest and in nearby Dorset. Unfortunately, I did not take a photo! Although there were lots of Keeled Skimmers up here there were not many other dragonflies, so I carried on to where the bog turned into a small, beautiful, open pool. There were a few more common damselflies and a few Emperors flying around but no new species, although I startled a Snipe from the floor.

Pool above Crockford Stream, New Forest, 30 Jul 25 - with free-roaming cattle in the background

Pool above Crockford Stream, New Forest, 30 Jul 25

Bog Pondweed - Crockford Stream, New Forest, 30 Jul 25

Following the water further down, the bog turned more into a proper, shallow stream with loads of tiny fish flitting about. A couple more species of damselfly appeared around this area including a Small Red Damselfly, which I had only seen once before, a species which is confined to heathland bogs. I am sure that there were all sorts of small, rare insects in this area, but I was focusing on odonata this morning.

Small red Damselfly - Crockford Stream, New Forest, 30 Jul 25

Crockford Stream, New Forest, 30 Jul 25 - this was the only bridge to cross the stream.

Right down at the bottom, along the section nearest the road, was the area which seemed easily the best for dragonflies and I walked up and down this a few times. Amongst the more common species I was really pleased to see many Beautiful Demoiselles, a species that we don’t get in Guernsey and one of my favourite insects.

Beautiful Demoiselle - Crockford Stream, New Forest, 30 Jul 25

Beautiful Demoiselles - Crockford Stream, New Forest, 30 Jul 25

Finally, after looking at hundreds of damselflies, I finally found my number one quarry - a Southern Damselfly. The New Forest is one of the few places that the species lives in the UK. Very similar to the other blue and black damsels, but this one has a mercury mark on its first segment - it’s meant to look like the astrological symbol for mercury. Unfortunately, I never found my third dragonfly target, the Golden-ringed Dragonfly, but at least I have a reason to go back.

Southern Damselfly - Crockford Stream, New Forest, 30 Jul 25

Lesser Water-plantain - Crockford Stream, New Forest, 30 Jul 25

My second port of call was Hatchet Pond, a larger lake with lots of marshy edges. I didn’t really have any specific targets here, I was just going to see what I could find.

Donkey - Hatchet Pond, New Forest, 30 Jul 25

The first area I tried was a cut-off, dried up pond just south of the road, which turned out to be terrific. It wasn’t quite dry but there was lots of marshy vegetation that you could actually walk through without sinking. One of the first things I flushed was bright green cricket-type creature. I didn’t recognise it and so I managed to net it and realised that it was actually a Large Conehead, which was not on my radar at all. This has only recently colonised the UK in the last few years. It is spreading rapidly along the south coast but I don’t know how many have been seen in the New Forest before.

Large Conehead - Hatchet Pond, New Forest, 30 Jul 25

As I had the net out, I started catching a few moths that I was putting up from the ground. They were mostly ‘grass-moths’, Agriphila and the like, but I also caught a superb Pyrausta purpuralis. And then I caught an even better ‘pyralid’ when I netted a Diamsemiopsis ramburialis (Migrant Sable) a new species for me. This is a southern moth that you look out for in your trap during periods of migrant activity - not what you expect to find whilst netting in the daytime inland with no southerly winds at all. It does not apparently breed in the UK at all but, as a wetland species, if it did, the New Forest ponds would be the perfect habitat for it to do so. So perhaps it is starting to colonise the UK in this area - who knows?

Diamsemiopsis ramburialis - Hatchet Pond, New Forest, 30 Jul 25

Hampshire-purslane - Hatchet Pond, New Forest, 30 Jul 25 - A rare plant rstricted to the New Forest - some kind of aquatic willowherb - doesn’t look much!

I then went up to the head of the pond where the streams enter the lake. There was lots of bog habitat round here and I went exploring. I noticed a guy wandering in amongst the bog and, due to his tell-tale slow progress, I presumed he was a naturalist. “What you looking for?” I called over to him. He was a botanist and was searching for Bog Orchid, a species he had seen here quite a few years ago and was trying to find it again. I wandered around for a bit, seeing lots more Keeled Skimmers and a few Black-tailed. I also sweep netted a Broom Moth larva amongst the stream-side vegetation.

I then looked round and saw the botanist guy lying down in the bog! He had either had some kind of medical emergency, or had found his quarry. Either way, I had to go investigate and walked up behind him. I said, “I guess you’ve found it then?” and he literally jumped out of his skin. He was photographing a tiny, green Bog Orchid growing at the base of a small shrub, just a few inches high. Compared to most orchids, this was so hard to see amongst the marshy vegetation. I tend to avoid other people when I’m out in the field, but it shows its worth being nosy sometimes.

Bog Orchid - Hatchet Pond, New Forest, 30 Jul 25

Exotic Water-lily sp. - Hatchet Pond, New Forest, 30 Jul 25

It was getting to late afternoon by the time I got to Beaulieu Heath, my final planned walk of the day, and I was pretty tired. I had to keep going though because I was after a new butterfly - Silver-studded Blue. Andy had been to the New Forest just a few weeks ago and told me that they were abundant on the dry heaths, but I had not even had a sniff yet. I headed straight out across the heather but there were no butterflies at all flying about. It wasn’t quite as sunny now and there was a bit of a breeze. Finally, I managed to net a single female Silver-studded Blue, unsatisfactory but welcome.

Beaulieu Heath looking back from Denny Wood, New Forest, 30 Jul 25

female Silver-studded Blue - Beaulieu Heath, New Forest, 30 Jul 25

Wasp Spider - Beaulieu Heath, New Forest, 30 Jul 25

There were plenty of Hymenoptera flying low across the sandy heath. Much the commonest was the Heather Mining Bee (Andrena fuscipes), of which there were literally thousands. On the sandy paths there were numerous species of wasps, including the long-bodied Ammophila sabulosa, and a new species of nomad bee for me, the Black-horned Nomad Bee (Nomada rufipes). A single male Dartford Warbler appeared briefly amongst the vegetation.

Across the heath I reached the one of the best ancient woodlands in the area, Denny Wood. There were not very many insects flying about but I did enjoy some woodland species which I rarely see. A couple of Nuthatches fed around an old decaying tree and I saw a Green Woodpecker. There were numerous roaming flocks of tits and warblers and I managed to get a good look at a Marsh Tit, something I have not seen for a while. Spotted Flycatchers were relatively common with quite a few noted along the paths.

Spotted flycatcher and Nuthatch - Denny Wood, New Forest, 30 Jul 25

It was so peaceful and quiet in the wood, it was a great way to spend the final part of my trip. I trudged back to the car and headed back to the hotel pretty well knackered. In total I had seen 166 new species during this week away, many more than I had expected, so a fabulous success..

On 28th July, breakfast was accompanied with a selection of moths from the trap. New species that we hadn’t had the previous few nights were Ear Moth, Nut-tree Tussock, Catoptria pinella and, a new species for me, Maple Prominent - a species which looks like the printer ran out of coloured ink before it managed to complete the forewing.

Today we planned to head inland for some Breckland specialities, so the others were in the right direction when they headed off home in the afternoon. Our first port of call was Thompson Common with its famous “pingo ponds”, hundreds of small water-filled hollows in the ground formed during the last ice age. The part we went to was mostly woodland with a few areas of grassy, marshy areas amongst the ponds. I had a total of 22 ticks here, albeit mostly common species of grass, moss, water-plants and fungus pointed out to me. Mike lifted a log in the wood and there were five Great Crested Newts hiding under there - an unexpected, custard-bellied lifer.

Great Crested Newts - Thompson Common, 28 Jul 25

Great Crested Newt - Thompson Common, 28 Jul 25

One of the species we hoped to find here was Pool Frog, only one of two species of truly native frogs in the UK. However, the native Pool Frogs died out, and it was declared extinct in the 90s. So technically, this is a reintroduction, but at a site where it used to be common. We were lucky enough to find one just resting in the shallows of one of the “pingos”. It immediately stood out as different from a Common Frog, and it had a bright green line running down its back.

With all the pools here, it is an excellent site for odonata and we were hoping to find Scarce Emerald Damselfly. However, we only saw normal Emerald Damselflies, including one we caught o give it a good check. A more surprising find was a couple of Southern Migrant Hawkers racing around one of the ponds, a species we didn’t know was present here. A few other notable species that we saw were Narrow Buckler-fern, Slender Knapweed, Fine-leaved Water-dropwort, the fly Conops quadrifasciatus and Wolf’s-milk Slime Mould.

Southern Migrant Hawker - Thompson Common, 28 Jul 25

Emerald Damselfly - Thompson Common, 28 Jul 25

Our next spot was Cranwich Camp, which is an open area of Breckland grassland and was superb for rare moths. Racing around with the net, we managed to find lots of great species. The three new macro species for me were Marbled Clover, Oblique Striped and Tawny Wave, all specialities of the area and moths that I am extremely unlikely to see at home. As well as these, we saw lots of Ear Moths on the flower heads, a few Clouded Buff, a Nemophora metallica and a few Essex Skippers to boot. It was a superb to see all of these species in just one field.

Marbled Clover - Cranwich Camp, 28 Jul 25 - feeding from Viper’s-bugloss

Oblique Striped - Cranwich Camp, 28 Jul 25

Oblique Striped - Cranwich Camp, 28 Jul 25 - there was quite a bit of variation, some being more stripy than others, maybe the females

There were some other great invertebrates here also, with Striped-winged Grasshopper being quite impressive, although I was too focused on the moths to notice many other things. We also had a couple of excellent range-restricted flowers here, both of which were by the car park rather than in the fields. Proliferous Pink, which I had never heard of, and Spanish Catchfly, both of which are real Breckland specialities.

Stripe-winged Grasshopper - Cranwich Camp, 28 Jul 25

Proliferous Pink - Cranwich Camp, 28 Jul 25

Spanish Catchfly - Cranwich Camp, 28 Jul 25

Artichoke Gall - Cranwich Camp, 28 Jul 25

I’d not seen Stone Curlew for quite a while so I was pleased with a quick stop at Weeting Heath, the site of my first Stone Curlews back in the 80s. We saw three birds there plus a chick, but they were quite distant. Here we said goodbye to John, Ian and Mike who set off back home. I had one more night in Norfolk before driving back south the next day.

Stone Curlews - Weeting Heath, 28 Jul 25

The next day we checked the moth trap again but no ticks this time. However, it was good to see an Oak Hook-tip for comparison with the Spiny Hook-tips at home.

Brown-line Bright-eye - Shotesham, 28 Jul 25 - does not occur in Guernsey

After breakfast I set off south and spent most of the day slowly travelling down the motorways towards the New Forest where I was spending the night. Due to the ferry not running every single day, I had a spare day in the UK, so I decided that the New Forest was the place to find lots of good species. I arrived at the Travelodge late afternoon, but the weather was a little bit damp and dull, so I decided to leave searching for species until the next day. So, I had a relaxing time at the hotel and had a delicious takeaway pizza ready to give it some welly the next day.

Just A Bird

Just A Bird

Mark Lawlor's Nature Blog

Just A Bird

July 2025 - trip to UK (day 7)

July 2025 - trip to UK (days 5 & 6)

Just A Bird