Flight fantastic

My lawnmowing today was interrupted by the arrival of a male Southern Hawker at the pond. It was quite breezy and he made repeated sorties across the water, trying to keep away a few Common Darters which wanted their place by the pool.

Now I've finally sussed out that autofocus is pretty useless on flying dragons, I had a much higher success rate. Yay!

I like the jaunty angle of the first one, but the slightly more blurred wings of the others.

photos taken with Canon EOS 30D, EF 300mm f/4L IS USM

Down by the pond

Common Darter

Emerald Damselfly

Pyrausta moth

It's been a good day for wildlife in and around the garden today. Darren found loads of Common Blues just next door. I saw a Spotted Flycatcher sitting on our washing line post, right outside the kitchen window (I was in the bathroom at the time). Darren saw a female Southern Hawker cruising around the pond (which I missed). I saw a Brown Argus perching on a waterlily bloom (what a photo that could have been!) but by the time I'd fetched the camera, it had gone.

An Emerald damselfly has been around the pond - is it the same one from a couple of weeks ago? I hadn't seen it again until today, but I'm sure I miss most of the pond action while I'm at work.

photos taken with Canon EOS 30D, EF 300mm f/4L IS USM

Who are you looking at?

Common Darter, one of three at the garden pond this afternoon

photos taken with Canon EOS 30D, EF 300mm f/4L IS USM

It's all happening in the garden

As if this morning's crazy moth trapping wasn't good enough, I found new species for the garden this afternoon, in the form of a female Emerald Damselfly. That was unexpected. She perched on the water mint in the pond and caught tiny insects.

Then, while I was composing my moth trapping blog post, there was a Yellow Wagtail calling from somewhere in the garden (couldn't see where, but we hear them fairly regularly and sometimes see them around the pond).

And then a Whimbrel flew over the garden, calling! Couldn't see that either. Don't even need it for a garden tick, unfortunately...

photos taken with Canon EOS 30D, EF 300mm f/4L IS USM

Baby newt

This little guy seems to be a Great Crested Newt eft. It's good to know that at least some have made it to this size.

photos taken with Canon EOS 30D, EF 300mm f/4L IS USM

All things bright and beautiful

Though I've lived here for three and a half years now, this garden still amazes me. It's just not normal. Yellow Wagtails aren't meant to have a bath in your pond, and then finish their toilette while perching on your garden table! It's not normal and I'm glad it's not.

These digiscoped-through-double-glazing photos (and video) aren't up to much technically, but they capture the moment for me. There were so many interesting poses and postures. And look at the length of those hindclaws!

photos taken with Canon Powershot A640 + Leica Apo Televid 77 with 20x eyepiece

The white stripes

Just about every other pond in the country is stuffed with frogs at the moment, but not mine. So I went to have a look for newts instead. Yesterday evening, while pulling out sheets of blanket weed, I accidentally scooped up a smart little male Smooth Newt. I admired his bright orange belly before putting him back.

This morning, I saw another Smooth Newt (or maybe the same one) swimming about, and then a white stripe down at the bottom of the pond. I wasn't sure whether it was a root, but when I looked back again it had disappeared. So I'm hoping that was my first Great Crested Newt of the year - the males have silvery-white stripes down their sides. Must be quite useful when you're in a murky pond.

Plenty of beetles and Backswimmers to be seen, too.

Pond progress

So, we've had the pond since the end of June 2008. Here's a little review of the first 14 months.

A lot of things have turned up because of the pond.

Damselflies and dragonflies

• Banded Demoiselle (well, it flew through the garden)
• Large Red Damselfly*
• Red-eyed Damselfly
• Azure Damselfly*
• Common Blue Damselfly*
• Blue-tailed Damselfly*
• Southern Hawker*
• Migrant Hawker
• Emperor
• Four-spotted Chaser*
• Broad-bodied Chaser*
• Black-tailed Skimmer (on the spoil heap before the pond had any water in it!)
  
• Common Darter*
• Ruddy Darter

* have laid eggs

other creatures

• Water Boatman
• Backswimmer
  
• Pondskater
• Caddis thing that lives in a rolled-up bit of vegetation
• Lesser Diving Beetle
• assorted other, smaller beetles
• some funky midge larvae

and

• oh yeah, Great Crested Newt
• Smooth Newt
• Common Frog

I managed to blag pond plants from other friendly pond people. Water Mint, Water Forget-me-Not, Flowering Rush, Water Lily, Marsh Marigold, Yellow Flag and Water Soldier have all been especially successful. In fact, the Soldiers have been a bit too successful. Two were donated last year; they had produced about a dozen plants by this summer! I had to cull a few.

The newts laid eggs on submerged bits of Water Mint and neatly folded up the leaves to protect them (the Great Crested Newts have been officially recorded which will mean that their needs will be taken into account in future). Something else lives inside two oval pieces of Water Lily leaf that it chomps out and makes a little sleeping bag out of.

I left long grass around the pond so that creatures have somewhere to hide - without fear of being mown - and dragonflies and damselflies have somewhere to perch after they've emerged (this spring has seen our first homegrown Common Darters and damselflies). Also, mowing around the edge would be tricky. However, I've trimmed the grass on one edge so I can get a better view from the house. I did it very carefully, with scissors, because using shears would've meant the trimmings fell in... That's how dedicated I am.

A small selection of birds have used the pond for bathing and drinking: mainly Greenfinches and Goldfinches, but also Yellow Wagtails this spring. The Swallows seem to like flying over it to catch insects. A Grey Heron came to have a look but I scared it away, fearing for the newts' lives...

In essence, it's been great fun and I'd recommend digging a wildlife pond to anyone.

photo taken with Canon Powershot A640

Nature study

Dragonfly nymph - probably a Common Darter


[Lesser] Water Boatman


A damselfly nymph?


A tiny newt eft, not much more than 1 cm long


photos taken with Canon Powershot A640

Things that fly

One in approximately 24 billion attempts to photograph dragonflies in flight. Still not sharp, but I can't afford to be fussy


This Hummingbird Hawkmoth fed on next-door's Buddleia before visiting our Lavender and mint


Small Skipper

Bumblebee on Thistle (thankyou, Mother...)

photos taken with Canon EOS 30D, EF 300mm f/4L IS USM

When a mummy newt and a daddy newt...

Baby newts are also known as 'efts'. I think this might be one of the offspring of our Great Cresteds, though it's not easy to tell.

Whichever species it is, you can see its gills and spindly legs starting to develop. These little fellows hatch out about a month after the eggs are laid, and in another three months' time, they'll be ready to leave the pond and spend the next couple of years as a land-lubber.

photos taken with Canon EOS 30D, EF 300mm f/4L IS USM

Another day, another dragonfly

This Four-spotted Chaser was a garden year-tick today. When I arrived it was busy seeing off a female Broad-bodied Chaser, which did not return. It then spent the rest of the afternoon (until it was overshadowed by the Ash tree) around the pond, posing very nicely on the Yellow Flag.

More photos on Flickr

I spent 11am-1pm in the garden, watching for Painted Ladies to log for the Butterfly Conservation survey. It seems that the butterfly boat has been missed - I only saw 10 in those two hours.

There was an unexpected benefit, however: a male Banded Demoiselle skipped past south as I was finishing the count! Where did that come from? The nearest habitat must be a good 10 km away...

photos taken with Canon EOS 30D, EF 300mm f/4L IS USM

Damselday

Azure Damselflies


Large Red Damselflies

Today I had the intention of mowing the lawn, planting some vegetables and doing some weeding. I managed to get the runner beans and courgettes sorted out, but didn't have much success with the rest.

Why not? Well, it's warm (21 degrees!) and humid, which makes gardening hard work. And loads of things kept appearing and making me get my camera.

First, a Common Blue butterfly, but that had disappeared by the time I returned with the camera. Next, an Orange-tip (which didn't stop) and a series of Painted Ladies which kept on migrating north.

On the pond it was damselfly day. The number of Azure Damselflies reached 9, but only a few lucky males seemed to have females attached (literally) to them. A couple of pairs of Large Red Damselflies were egg-laying.

It's been good to see that the male Whitethroat seems to have found a mate, who spends her time creeping about in the cow parsley around the edge of the garden (glad I didn't chop it). And a female Yellow Wagtail came to have a bath in the pond. She liked it so much she came back for another dip.

photos taken with Canon EOS 30D, EF 300mm f/4L IS USM

What goes in, must come out

We got the pond dug and filled in time to receive our first batch of damselflies and dragonflies last spring. Nearly one year on, our first home-grown damsels are emerging!

It's been grey and grotty all day here today, so I didn't expect to see this when I got home. Two Azure Damselflies had emerged and were clinging to the Yellow Flag leaves, right next to their exuviae. Poor things. I wonder what triggered them to do it today? It's far from ideal damselfly weather. I hope it doesn't rain too hard overnight - they could easily get washed in and drown.

Photo taken with Canon Powershot A640

This is the BBC news

'We interrupt this blog to bring you BBC news...'

OK, it's a Broad-bodied Chaser, a maturing male (the blue is coming through). The first dragonfly to visit the pond in 2009 was joined briefly by a Large Red Damselfly and Blue-tailed Damselfly, but they didn't wait for photos.

photos taken with Canon EOS 30D, EF 300mm f/4L IS USM

Pond dipping

I entered an alien world this afternoon. After ordering a pond dipping kit from Alana Ecology about a month ago, I felt the time was right to put it to use. Here are some of the mindboggling creatures I found.



Wiggly thing - fly larva?


Beetle larva


Baby Backswimmer - a perfect minature version of its parents, but about 3mm across


Snail


What's this? A Caddis Fly larva? The rolled up thing it lives in is about 35mm long. Comically, it swims around the pond inside its little tube. If you know what it is, please leave a comment

More photos on Flickr

If you have a garden pond, all this can be yours for about £15. Do it, you won't regret it!

photos taken with Canon Powershot A640

Newtology

The pond

Now the days are longer and the weather (slightly) better, I've been spending time by the pond again. For the past two or three weeks, 'our' Great Crested and Smooth Newts have returned.

The water's still clear, so it's possible to watch them with binoculars without disturbing them, which is great fun. The Smooth Newts are easier to see, favouring the shallower water, while the Great Cresteds lurk in the deep and only come up for air every 15 minutes.

I love watching them swim about. The Smooth Newts in particular seem to live in their own watery world, floating around with their little legs sticking out at right-angles.

Watching them 'hunting' is intriguing. Through binoculars, you can see them lining up a morsel of food - perhaps a mosquito larva. It wiggles, tantalisingly, in front of the newt's nose. The newt prepares to make its move... but often it seems that the larva is ahead of the game and makes off just before the newt prepares its explosive burst of speed.

I'm getting better at newt identification now. Telling male from female Smooth Newts is fairly straightforward - mature males have a jagged crest from head to tail, looking a bit like a mini Stegosaurus, or an aquatic crinkle-cut chip. The females are... Smooth, looking more like a lizard.

We seem to have some huge female Great Crested Newts in the pond, bulging with eggs. The males follow the females around and swim in front of her, sometimes even lashing them with their tails. Not very romantic.

So, now that I've turned into a newt nerd, I decided I needed to learn more about them. And that's why I went to Ramsey Heights yesterday for 'An Introduction to Great Crested Newts'. We weren't introduced personally to any newts, but I learned a lot. An afternoon in the classroom was followed up with practical newt surveying - shining torches into the pools where they live. You need a licence to do that, but it gave me a taster of something I'd like to find out more about...

photos taken with Canon Powershot A640

Any frogs in there?

A nice, sunny morning, so I ventured out into the garden to stare into the pond. I'm really hoping for some frogs and newt action this year, and wondered whether the weather would provoke some activity.

Of course, there isn't any yet. Not even any water boatmen or pondskaters moving around today. Some blanketweed (that fine, stringy algae that accumulates into thick masses) has grown around some of the pond plants, so I thought I'd try to remove it. 

Plunged hand into pond. Aaaarghh!

No wonder nothing's moving. It's flipping freezing. Not literally, of course, but it didn't feel far off. My fingers soon felt frozen to the bone. Maybe I need to wait til it's warmed up a bit.

Sunny Saturday

This beautiful male Southern Hawker spent a good portion of the day patrolling the pond, but stopped for a rest on the buddleia

Ruddy Darter

Across the road...

Yes, autumn's here

photos taken with Canon EOS 30D, EF 300mm f/4L IS USM

Froglet

The Great Crested Newts seem to have vanished again, so the amphibian content of the pond seems to be down to one Common Frog and one Smooth Newt eft. I love the frog, but I won't be kissing it.

photos taken with Canon Powershot A640