Damselflies Making More :)

Large Red Damselfly (Pyrrhosoma nymphula), originally uploaded by Pipsissiwa.

I spotted this impressive species of damselfly hanging around the pond over the weekend. Damselflies are closely related to dragonflies, but the key difference (aside from size) is that dragonflies hold their wings open (out to each side) at rest, whereas damselflies close their wings along their abdomen (as shown in the above photo).

The identification of this male was straightforward. There are only two red damselflies in the UK, the simply named 'Large Red Damselfly' and the 'Small Red Damselfly'. The small reds are smaller, obviously, and lack the black bands on the abdomen. Their abdomen is pure red.

I had only seen a couple of males hanging around, presumably waiting for a mate. One clearly had success, as I was extremely excited to observe a pair mating on the hedge today.

The female is the one at the bottom, with her abdomen curled up to the right, attaching to the male under his thorax to collect sperm. You can see the difference in colouration between the sexes quite clearly. The female is paler in this case (although not always), and has more black markings on her slightly broader abdomen.

They then proceeded to the pond, where the male remained attached while the female lowered her abdomen as deep as she could into the pond in various places to lay her eggs on the stems and leaves.

The male looks so odd; he just stands there pointing up in the air, waiting for her to finish. Most of the time he is 'standing' on his abdomen, not even holding onto anything.

There are already lots of damselfly nymphs from last spring getting big in the pond. I am so pleased we have another generation waiting to hatch out and grow.

Flies & Frogs

Common Frog (Rana temporaria), originally uploaded by Pipsissiwa.

The weather was so beautiful yesterday that I had to be in the garden, despite a rotten cough and sore throat. I sat on the grass in the sun and happily watched the pond.

Brindled Hoverflies are already returning to stake their claim (they lay their eggs in the water), early bees stop for a drink and all sorts of little bugs and beetles roam among the plants.

There are still plenty of fly larvae wriggling on the surface as an adult fly emerges, which never ceases to amaze me how ever many times I see it. Damselfly, dragonfly and mayfly larvae are everywhere in the water and daphnia are increasingly abundant. The various plants are growing rapidly now too, so the pond is really starting to look good.

All this cheered me up no end, but none so much as spotting something larger just peeping out of the water on the far side of the pond. I admit, I audibly squeaked with excitement when I realised I was looking at a young frog.

Moments later I spotted a second. They were obviously young, being much smaller than an adult frog, and are almost certainly last year's babies. Very relaxed, they seemed quite happy to let me photograph them.

So now I know that both newts and frogs survived the cold and snowy winter successfully, probably in the log pile that borders the pond. I am thrilled about how successful setting up the pond has been. Full of clear, sweet smelling water and teeming with a huge variety of life, it doesn't look like it has only been there for 9 months. All the time, care and research I used to get it set up properly has obviously paid off!

The Pond - April 2nd 2011

The Pond - 2011 - 07, originally uploaded by Pipsissiwa.

Everything is growing like crazy in the garden, and that certainly includes the pond.

The water forget-me-not is sending up shoots ready to flower and the iris is getting huge! The marsh marigolds are in full bloom, adding a golden glow to the pond edges.

The pond itself is full of life. We have dragonfly larvae, damselfly larvae and mayflies, water lice, loads of pond snails of assorted species and sizes, various beetles, daphnia (water fleas) and a tonne of unidentified larvae and worms.

Marvellous.

A Water Louse. They look just like woodlice, but with longer legs.

A selection of Insect larvae from the pond. The large greenish nymph is a damselfly, the two stumpy round-bodied ones are dragonfly nymphs and the smaller three-tailed one at the bottom is a mayfly larva.

Operation Bumblebee Rescue

This magnificent and large Bumblebee crawled out from hibernation one morning a couple of days ago.

It emerged groggily from the log pile looking weak and scruffy, and then carefully positioned itself in the spring sunshine to warm up.

After doing some gardening, I checked on it a few hours later and was a bit worried that it hadn't moved. I took some photos and then settled down by the pond to relax and watch the insects buzzing the water. The bee sat motionless for a long time, but eventually, after some warm up wing buzzes, it launched into the air. Unfortunately it was destined to plummet straight into the pond. I gently fished it out and put it back into the sun to dry.

Sadly, some more hours later it was very, very weak and could barely walk. It made no further attempts to fly so I placed it on a Marsh Marigold flower in the hope it could feed. Mouthparts out and searching, it couldn't find any nectar, and just got covered in pollen for its efforts. I wasn't sure what else to do.

I couldn't bring myself to just leave it to die, so I mixed up some sugar and water in a little pot lid and offered it to the bee. It came alive immediately and drank copiously for almost 10 minutes.

A few minutes and lots of abdomen wiggling later, its buzzed a bit and soared into the air. After making a couple of confident circles of the garden, it flew strongly away, leaving me with a warm fuzzy feeling of having saved a life.









Bee Drinking Sugarwater, originally uploaded by Pipsissiwa.

Winter into Spring

The pond is starting to come alive after the winter. All the plants are shooting and growing, and the marsh marigolds are covered in buds. Peering into the water I have seen lots of Daphnia (water fleas) and many types of insect larvae swimming around.

I can't identify them all, but there are mayfly larvae (which is no surprise since I watched mayflies emerge from the water last August), and rat-tailed maggots which are hoverfly larvae. These latter are often associated with stagnant water, but I watched the adult Brindled Hoverflies mating and laying their eggs in the pond last summer, and it certainly isn't stagnant!

Sadly, there is no frog or newt spawn this year, but that doesn't surprise me as our little babies from last year are too young to breed yet, and there aren't many ponds around here for 'local' amphibians to have come from. One bit of good news on the amphibian front however; I disturbed a young newt basking in the sun-warmed shallow waters a couple of days ago. So at least one of our newtlets survived the very cold and snowy winter!

Photo Hopes for 2011

I'm not doing New Year resolutions. I can never keep them. Instead, I'm planning some photos that I really hope to get this year, but it won't be a failure if I don't, because nature is a fickle thing. I've already got pics of some of these, but I really want a 'portrait' quality image of them.

These are just some of my 'targets' for the lens this year, in no particular order:

• Frog.
• Frogspawn.
  
• Female Wolf Spider with egg sac/spiderlings.
• Mining Bee.
• Mating Grasshoppers.
• Thick-Legged Flower beetle in flight (they look so ungainly).
  
• Dragonfly (any species).
• Holly Blue butterfly.
• Rose Sawfly laying eggs.
  
• Parasitic Wasp.
  
• Plant Louse.
  
• Garden Orb Spider spiderling ball.
• The scarab beetle that has flown off every time I've seen one for the last 2 years.

I'm also planning to take a pic of the pond at least every 2 weeks, hopefully every week or even more often in spring/summer, to record its first full year.

It all but vanished in December. You can just make out some ice under all the snow. Fortunately the plants seem to have survived (another good reason to buy UK native species). Just gotta hope the water beetle, frogs, newts and everything else found somewhere warm and safe to spend the winter.








Soon it will be spring, the garden will begin to awaken, and a new year of sitting out there and peering into bushes (for hours) can begin.

Bliss.

Wood Mouse (Apodemus sylvaticus)

Wood Mouse (Apodemus sylvaticus), originally uploaded by Pipsissiwa.

I was sitting taking some photographs of the pond the other day when I kept hearing rustling noises coming from the top of the low wooden wall along the side of the garden. I couldn't see anything obvious, so I assumed it was a small bird or something in next-door's garden.

As I was preparing to go back indoors, I just happened to be looking at the right spot as something fast and brown disappeared into the tangled Sedum stems growing over the wall. A few minutes of watching and I discovered that it was a beautiful, huge eyed Wood Mouse, making repeated trips along the wall under the ivy to gather nesting material.

I crept closer and with a hefty dose of patience, luck and muscle cramp I got a few photos and this awesome piece of video. I quickly realised that the mouse was way too fast to get many decent pictures in the dark corner where it was emerging. A sudden flash of inspiration lead me to record this short video of the mouse cautiously emerging from the hole.

The mouse is easily identified as a Wood Mouse, with the ginger-red fur, white belly and insanely huge black eyes. Cute as a button.

I am thrilled that a wild mammal has set up home in my garden, and that I know about it. We have the occasional visiting fox, which is truly wonderful, but not the same as a resident. I wouldn't be surprised if there are other mammals living in my garden, but I've never seen them or seen evidence of them, making this one very special indeed.