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The pond has become quite overgrown in the three weeks we were away and I have spent some time doing some clearing. It is slow work as I am taking care to check all plants that are removed from the water. Although the rain that occured during our absence has encouraged the frogs to spread away from the pond, there are quite a few small frogs about. There is still the frequent sound of croaking adults in the garden. I have seen just a couple of tadpoles in the pond, although I have come across numerous young newts - they still posess external gills. Before we left for Cornwall I had commented on the lack of damselflies and dragonflies seen in the garden. In the last week I have seen just one adult dragonfly in the garden. It was a large hawker (probably a Southern Hawker) and seemed to be egg-laying on the lower parts of the log in the big pond. I did not get a chance to take any photographs. Today I intended to do some more extensive pond 'weeding' but the rain arrived before I started. I did, however do a quick bit of pond-dipping and came up with the only damselfly larva that I have come across this year (there have been no dragonfly larvae). A search of my guides suggests that the larva belongs to the family Platycnemidae, possibly the genus Platycnemis - I am ready to be corrected on this identification. |
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26
August - Since returning
from our holiday last Monday I have been slow to pay a lot of
attention to the pond(s) as a lot of other jobs needed to be
done.