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damsel flies
I'd be hard put to say exactly when we started wildlife friendly gardening, but it's certainly been a long time since we used any form of herbicide or pesticide and I've biased heavily towards native plants in recent years. The pond in the back garden has been there two years and is maturing well.
The results are clear to see though.
Sitting in the back garden eating my lunch, I watched a steady stream of sparrows, wood pidgeons, dunnocks, starlings and blackbirds going about their daily lives. We also regularly get robins and wrens and in the last week or two, goldfinches.
However, today was a damsel fly, one of the first of the year. It alighted on my hand while I was eating lunch and stayed there for a couple of minutes. They're incredibly delicate creatures, body all of 3cm long, transparent gauze wings and enormous eyes in proportion to the body that he cleans regularly with a forleg.
Just like this picture, only much smaller in real life.
http://www.judywoods.dial.pipex.com/insects/damsel.html
Beautiful.
The results are clear to see though.
Sitting in the back garden eating my lunch, I watched a steady stream of sparrows, wood pidgeons, dunnocks, starlings and blackbirds going about their daily lives. We also regularly get robins and wrens and in the last week or two, goldfinches.
However, today was a damsel fly, one of the first of the year. It alighted on my hand while I was eating lunch and stayed there for a couple of minutes. They're incredibly delicate creatures, body all of 3cm long, transparent gauze wings and enormous eyes in proportion to the body that he cleans regularly with a forleg.
Just like this picture, only much smaller in real life.
http://www.judywoods.dial.pipex.com/insects/damsel.html
Beautiful.
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