Tag: pond

Darter, common

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The next day after the previous post, another dragonfly appears in the vicinity of the garden pond, and stays still on the crocosmia, presumably waiting for its wings to develop after emerging. This was maybe between one inch and an inch and a half long.

Reference to the British Dragonfly Society website suggests this is a common darter, colours not yet matured into red.

It seems to me that this demonstrates one of the many benefits of a garden pond in providing for a diversity of wildlife. Unfortunately, garden ponds are no longer as popular in UK as they were in my memory, probably due to the work involved in maintaining them. It’s so much easier to mow a lawn, put down plastic grass, or tarmac it over.

Hawker, common

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You know how dragonflies are always on the move, usually continuously patrolling their territory. So it was a surpise to see this large one just basking on a loganberry stem in the garden. The insect was probably a couple of inches long.

The British Dragonfly Identification Guide suggests that this is a common hawker. We realised that this was probably newly emerged, maybe from our garden pond, waiting for its wings to fully develop.

Another revelation was the following zoom closeup taken with my Samsung Galaxy S22 smartphone, confirming that high-end modern smartphone cameras have caught up with many of the capabilities of my previously favoured compact superzooms Panasonic TZ80/TZ200. And this shot has been reduced to 2500px width.

Big eyes!

If we don’t love the Earth

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If we don’t love the earth and nature, what future do we human beings have? We are of the earth, an integral part of it. If we don’t love it we will not look after it, and it will not sustain us. This is evidently the track we are on. With every species extinction a little of each of us dies. With every increase in global temperature the future of our descendants becomes more precarious, even less likely to complete what we have come to consider a normal life span.

Historically every civilisation has failed due to loss of soil fertility and climate change. So our global civilisation has perhaps the most difficult task humanity has ever faced. Yet it is so easy, because it is about love, for the earth, for our grandchildren and their children on through the generations. And love is free.

The peculiarity of modernity is that we have placed nature at arms length – ‘the environment’ – and treat her as an economic resource through land ownership, mining, and so on. You cannot love an economic resource; love of money is said to be the root of all evil.

We need to love the earth again, not only as individuals but through our institutions. Even with our limited economic mindset through which politics works, we can do it. But we need to every year put back more than we take out. We need the measures in place and the actions to get there. It is evident that even at this 12th hour, the politicians, supposed leaders, of today, are still not doing enough and are paying lip service, with targets ‘for 2050’ rather than tomorrow.

For example, suppose every species extinction led to a global enquiry, followed up by actions to ensure that such things do not become the daily occurrence that they probably already are…

Frogs are increasingly endangered. When we first made our garden pond over 30 years ago it became regularly populated by many frogs, often found hopping around the garden and heard croaking. This year I think we have one. I was tidying up a part of the garden today, a nice damp area with vegetation overflowing. The frog jumped out and sat on the path looking at me. I’ll swear he was saying ‘hey, enough of that, I live here’. Of course I left his home undisturbed after that.

Yes I need to leave even more of the garden in an untidy state for the many creatures that live there. I love the lot of them. How about you?

Inspired by Why Rebel, by Jay Griffiths, a true lover of the earth.

Featured image of frogs spawning in our garden, 2001.

Large Red Damselflies

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Lots of pairs of Large Red Damselflies flit around our pond this sunny Sunday morning, aiming to create the little pests that sometimes take bites out of fish. There I am trying to get a reasonable shot, without much success – they’re always too far away, moving about too much, difficult to focus, awkward background… Then along comes wife: “I’ve got a pair on my hand!” Suddenly it’s easy to get a reasonable photo of those colourful bodies and lacy wings.

damselflies

The female has the yellow in the stripes, and the male is a darker red.

They do come in handy, wives!

Miss Abbott

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The teacher I recall most fondly from my primary school years (ages 7-11, then called junior school) in 1950s Lincoln was Miss Abbott, probably then in her mid twenties. She was our class teacher in the second year, so I was probably 8-9. She was basically an effective teacher and a ‘nice’ person – a word I was subsequently exhorted to avoid by teachers seeking to encourage a broader vocabulary.

south common lincolnOn the most memorable day, the whole class went out for a walk to Lincoln’s South Common, where we had an outdoor lesson on nature, and particularly the wildlife in the ponds that are found there. This was my first experience of pond dipping. And we played games on the grass.

It cannot be a coincidence that my most memorable learning experience took place out of doors in nature, rather than all the many other days spent in the classroom in front of a blackboard.

Sadly, there may have been frogs, sticklebacks and damsel flies that subsequently suffered due to the enthusiasms stimulated, but the passion for nature has remained.

Picture of pond on Lincoln’s south common
by John Bennett, via Wikimedia Commons.
The pond in memory was smaller than this one.

Common Newt

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8-year-old granddaughter has a new passion for pond dipping, and brings friends round to show them at every opportunity.

The main catch is baby common newts (efts). We had no ldea there were so many in the pond. Other catches included dragonfly larvae, pond skaters, spiders. The frogs hid.

This is a great way to get children interested in nature, and there was high excitement when a pretty well fully grown newt was caught in the net.

Later, another was caught and the 12-year-old gave a fortunately brief science lesson, capturing the poor newt in the birdbath for inspection before its release back to nature.

newt in birdbath

Interestingly, newts are nocturnal animals and spend the day in hiding, so maybe the ones in the pond are not yet fully grown.