[Fleecewife]

We have two ponds, a wildlife one which is an ex duck pond in the orchard, and a posh ornamental one in the flower garden.  The posh one is fairly barren still as it's new.  There are some pond plants standing in it still waiting to be planted out after a year (did most of them today) and the odd frog swimming around, water boatmen and beetles and so on.  The other day we saw a tiny fish but it seems to have gone now, and from today we know why.  We were sitting on the rocks in the sunshine when Mr F spotted something weird at the edge of the water.  He peered and peered trying to work out what it was.  Suddenly  he'd worked it out.  It was what seemed an enormous dragonfly nymph carrying a small frog in its jaws.
Lots of you will say 'oh we've got loads of dragon flies', but we haven't and one of the reasons for making the pond was to get some and now we have     The thing is, it's quite big so must have been there since last year.  I suppose it could have come in on water plants, as the fish probably did, or it could have been laid last year and has been lurking ever since, living on frogs (there was no frogspawn this year so it won't have had tadpoles, but hopefully there will be some next year to fatten Cerberus the mini dragonfly.
It's wonderful watching this colonisation of the water from nothing.
I've just realised that the weird thing I saw eating tadpoles in the wildlife pond a couple of months ago was also a dragonfly nymph, but a bit smaller  .  So we have more than one.  I'm over the moon 

[SallyintNorth]

Well done!  Isn't it lovely when you see a species you've been trying to encourage begin to do well

[Fleecewife]

Today we saw an adult dragonfly - the first - looking for a suitable place to lay its eggs - and it chose our pond  .  The posh pond is starting to mature more now.  I have noticed a couple of great diving beetles, which means there'll be nothing small left in there to grow - still, they're fascinating too.  Apparently they fly in - wish I'd seen that.
Back in the summer there were lots of what I assume were whirligig beetles, circling madly in the middle of the water.
The birds use the posh pond as a giant bird bath, whereas the hens choose to drink from the rather green duck pond.  Our hens clearly like water with body    The swallows are gone now, but all summer they swoop over the surface of the posh pond to scoop up beaksful of water.

I could sit and watch the pond all day