Hurrah, hurrah, it’s Damselfly Day!

I wandered down to the pond last weekend, to have a look at the giant tadpoles. They seem much bigger than they usually are this time of year.

As I crouched down, a damselfly surprised me by landing on my leg. I looked up and saw a couple of them bobbing around the pond.

It was obviously damselfly emerging day! The heat of the sun, between the showers must have tempted them out.

I took a couple of photos with my phone, then went off to the house to get the ‘proper camera’.

Damselfly, official name – Suborder Zygoptera.

If you are in any doubt, the way to tell a damselfly from a dragonfly, are:

Much smaller body, the size of a matchstick
Eyes wide apart
Wings closed when resting

Alternatively you can visit The British DragonFly Society website.

Making a Damselfly home

As most of you know by now, I’ve been dreaming of a wildlife pond for a very long time. It goes right back to one of my wonderful primary school teachers taking us pond dipping. Followed on by watching the lovely Geoff Hamilton on Gardeners World. He advocated the benefits of encouraging the maximum diversity of wildlife into your garden. He stressed that the best possible way to do this was to have a pond!

I was really hoping for frogs and dragonflies, but I had no idea how many creatures would flock to the water.

The damselflies came within twelve months of filling the pond and have been happily returning ever since. Once they start to emerge from the water, the garden is filled with them dancing around the flower borders.

Somewhere for Damselflies to dry out

When we filled the pond, we added a couple of branches. The idea was to give the birds something to land on. They’ve proved very popular with all of the wildlife and the damselflies definitely love them too.

When choosing pond plant, it’s really important to have some with leaves that grow up and out of the water. Iris are the probably the best.

This allows the damsel and dragon fly nymphs to climb up out of the water once they’re ready to under go their metamorphosis.

Their skin splits down the back and as they emerge they inflate their wings and abdomen to gain their adult form. Miraculous!

You can see how small they are in comparison to my hand.

If you hold your hand out and have a few patience, they will just land on you.

They are so light and delicate, that you can’t even feel them on your skin. Unlike the huge dragonflies that I set out to attract.

The one damselfly was so funny. As I moved the camera around, she kept moving around the iris leaf, it was hilarious. The first couple of times she moved, I thought it was a coincidence, but she kept doing it. I captured her eventually, together with her shadow.