Saturday, 20 March 2010

Pond Dip - March 2010

This morning I popped out for a walk round the garden during a break in the rain and couldn't resist dipping the ponds to see what I could find. As usual there were lots of newtpoles and hundreds of water slaters. I also found this adult newt, which looks like it might be pregnant:


These are damselfly larvae at different stages of development (though they could well also be different species):




If anyone can tell me what this little creature is I'd be most pleased. Unfortunately I didn't measure it, but it was probably around 5mm long:

6 comments:

holdingmoments said...

Always amazes me how anything can survive in frozen ponds through the winter. A good job it does though.

John in Stoke-sub-Hamdon said...

Just because I do not leave comments it does not mean that I do not read and enjoy your blog, Helen. Keep it up.

Scriptor Senex said...

It looks like a Caddis Fly larva without a case - one of the free-swimming ones (about a quarter of our 200 Caddis fly larvae}; something along the lines of Rhyacophila dorsalis

Helen said...

Thanks John. There should be a lot more posts coming soon now that spring is on its way.

Dad: a caddis fly larva after all (glad I didn't blog that stick)!

Scriptor Senex said...

oops - Ah well - nearly a Caddis Fly!

ADRIAN said...

Glad you are going to post from the pond, saves me ploughing through the book.