Lesser Florican - August 2023

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Tuesday 19 June 2012

New Forest + Heyshott 19/6/12

A great day out in amazing weather. I started off at Lower Pennington and saw the ad. Night Heron in flight a couple of times.

By 9.30am the temperature was already 18 degrees as I arrived at Acres Down. Setting up and scanning out, a male Goshawk was already circling above. Over the next 3 hours another Goshawk was seen perched up on a conifer. Also a Woodlark, small parties of Crossbills and loads of Buzzards but unfortunately no sign of any Honeys.

I then parked up at Puttles Bridge and walked down Silver Stream and saw about 10 Southern Damselflies and lots of Keeled Skimmers, The latter were very flighty and impossible to photograph.

I then walked along the stream heading NW to Markway Bridge and in a small channel I found 3 Scarce Blue-tailed Damselflies. Other Damsels included White-legged, Large Red, Azure and Blue-tailed. Also along this stream were 2 Hobbies, a family of Redstarts and a Lesser Butterfly Orchid.

Time was getting on so I headed back and looked on Heyshott Down and I counted exactly 50 Musk Orchids, and 8 Greater Butterfly Orchids in the wood. A Tree Pipit was also there.


 male Southern Damselfly


 male Scarce Blue-tailed Damselfly
 Greater Butterfly Orchid

Musk Orchid