Here be dragons

Seeing the first dragonfly of the summer – as happened this morning - is a bit like hearing the first cuckoo of spring – or, at least, it is for me. Somehow it marks the beginning of something, or confirms that we are definitely in summer. This year there could have been no doubt of that but in some of the more miserable years a dragonfly whizzing past has been welcome confirmation.

Dragonflies in the garden (I think this one was an Emperor, but it was moving fast) is one of the many benefits of having a ‘wild’ pond in the garden. Not a neatly laid out, rectangular goldfish pond with steep sides and exotic fish. An irregularly shaped hole in the ground with sloping sides to enable small mammals to escape if they fall in. It also has loads of stinking mud at the bottom for the many animals that need that environment, with plants around the edge to provide cover from predators.

My pond doesn’t look much, and definitely needs re-doing – as you can see in the picture below you can hardly tell it’s there - but it does the job, as evidenced by large numbers of frogs and newts throughout the garden – and of course the dragonflies.

A bit of a facelift for the pond is planned for later in the year, but before the frogs start to hibernate in the mud at the bottom.