Pond life

Our garden pond looked a haven of peace as I gazed at the water lilies and water hawthorn flowers poking through the various leaves floating on the surface. I wandered a bit closer with my camera, thinking I would capture a shot of one of the blooms and it was then that I realised that there was a lot of activity on and in that seemingly peaceful area. There were many red damselflies darting about from leaf to leaf but there were even more that had paired up and were pausing to deposit their eggs, just like this pair on the water hawthorn flower. There were various insects skating about in the  patches of open water but under the water I spotted two very interesting creatures. One was a large diving beetle about 3cm long and the other was quite a large damselfly nymph. Between them, they may well have gobbled up most of the tadpoles that were there earlier in the year.