None of this pretends to be science, it is just the outcome from lots of questions I have asked myself over a few years ... "Ooh, I don't see many of those, I wonder where else in the Forest they might be?" and "The seasons have changed noticeably during my lifetime, I wonder if that has affected the odos in any way".  The distribution maps in particular guide some of my trips, either to investigate a location with no previous records or to watch the behaviour of a particular species.  I also wanted to see how country-wide trends manifest at a local level in a small part of the country; with that in mind, the apparent change in New Forest Common Blue Damselfly distribution fair made my eyes pop.  Regarding that or anything else, I welcome comments on where I might have missed something (address on the "About this site" page).

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Regarding the supplier of the data, the NBN is a behind-the-scenes charity deserving of huge praise for the work they do in making publicly available all manner of biodiversity data from across the UK.  Without them and without the millions upon millions of records submitted by the public (nudge, nudge) it would be much harder to understand current biodiversity and how it might fare in the future.  For Odonata alone, the Atlas holds over two million records.  See the link on the "About this site" page.

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"Record" in the context of both the distribution and flight period pages means a sighting of at least one adult at a specific location on a specific date regardless of the number of individuals seen.  Different species occur in different densities; a Golden-ringed Dragonfly male might control a territory of fifty metres or more along a stream, while in that same stretch there could be dozens of Beautiful Demoiselle and Azure Damselfly.  If an observer treats that stretch as a distinct site, then only three records would result, one for each species.  The maps and graphs are intended to show when and where a species is most likely to be seen, not necessarily how many to expect.  For anyone familiar with the NBN Atlas, note also that additional details such as "cop/tandem" and "ovipositing" are merged with "adult" to create a single record for these maps and graphs.