​The gallery is intended as a showcase for these beautiful animals, perhaps to entice people to observe them and then submit their records; it is a selection of my snaps from about 2016 onwards. They are chosen, subjectively, as the best of each species I have managed to take, aiming mainly for "pretty" but also considering different colour forms and the visibility of identifying features. A few New Forest species are absent because while I have seen most of them, I haven't been able to get a decent shot of all. These include Hairy Dragonfly, Brown Hawker, Common Hawker and most of the occasional visitors or recent arrivals such as Lesser Emperor and Southern Migrant Hawker.
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As well as the photo gallery, included in this site are pages showing distribution and flight period changes.
Resources and thanks
Thanks are due to many people: those who have helped me to become proficient at identifying the species and those providing occasional company while plodging about remote parts of our special landscape. Most especially though, the authors of the ID resources mentioned opposite; I would be clueless without their help.
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I haven't made direct references to these books but I have learnt much from them, especially while preparing this web site and in particular the Corbet & Brooks book with reference to flight periods:
"The Dragonflies of Hampshire" by John Taverner, Steve Cham, Alan Hold et al, published in 2004.
"Atlas of Dragonflies of Britain and Ireland" edited by Steve Cham, Brian Nelson, Adrian Parr, Steve Prentice, Dave Smallshire and Pam Taylor, published in 2014.
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"Dragonflies" by Philip Corbet & Stephen Brooks, 2008 (partly a reworking of Corbet's earlier book opposite but with much more).
My most used identification resources are:
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"Dragonflies & Damselflies of Great Britain and Ireland" by Brooks, Cham and Lewington. Fifth edition, 2014.
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"Britain's Dragonflies" by Smallshire and Swash. Fourth edition, 2018.
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"Odo-nutters" (website) by John & Carol Curd:
Odo-nutters – A pair of dragonfly and damselfly enthusiasts
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"Field Guide to the larvae and exuviae of British Dragonflies" by Steve Cham, published in 2012.
​Direct references in the text are to:
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"A Biology of Dragonflies" by Philip Corbet, published in 1962.
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"State of Dragonflies in Britain and Ireland 2021" by ​Taylor, P., Smallshire, D., Parr, A.J., Brooks, S.J., Cham, S.A., Colver, E.F., Harvey, M., Hepper, D., Isaac, N.J.B., Logie, M.W., McFerran, D., McKenna, F., Nelson, B. & Roy, D.B. 2021. British Dragonfly Society, Old Weston, Huntingdon.
The records used to create the maps, graphs and animations in this site were provided by the British Dragonfly Society Recording Scheme, accessed through the National Biodiversity Network Atlas during April 2025.
​For access to over two million records of UK dragonflies and damselflies, the National Biodiversity Network Atlas is here (free - but the NBN is a charity): ​NBN Atlas - UK’s largest collection of biodiversity information
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For general information about dragonflies and damselflies, for further ID help and for guidance on submitting records of what you see, try the British Dragonfly Society (BDS, also a charity): British Dragonfly Society
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The coastline and topographic information were provided by Ordnance Survey, © Crown copyright and database right 2022, licensed under the Open Government Licence v3.0.
If you notice any ID cock-ups or other errors, please feel free to embarrass me (Steve Hewitt) via email to DeepDeneSteve@gmail.com
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Similarly for any responses to my distribution and flight period musings, especially any links to suggested further reading for my education.