With temperatures remaining mild down here in Sussex, insects continue to buzz about , including a bumblebee last weekend on my Catmint, and a Common Darter dragonfly still on the wing nearby.
But most surprising for the time of year are the insects still in my pond. Or rather on it, for the surface is still busy with pond skaters.
It made me ponder how much I actually know about pond skaters. I knew they were true bugs - the Hemipterans - rather than being flies or beetles or suchlike. And being bugs, that means that they eat by sucking - they home in on flies and other insects that have fallen into the water, and rush along to grab them and spike their mouthparts into their prey (a bit gruesome, sorry).
But where do they go in winter? Where do they breed? And how do they ensure their legs don't break through the water's surface?
Well, it turns out that the adults can survive the winter, but go torpid and hide up away from water among leaves and in other sheltered places. They then emerge in spring and lay their eggs on pondside vegetation.
Being bugs, there is no larval stage - the youngsters emerge from the egg looking like miniature versions of the adult.
And then they start skating. The soles of their feet have little water-repellent bristles that just create little depressions in the water surface. The back legs are for steering, the middle legs for rowing, and the front legs for catching - oh, the benefits of having six legs, eh?
And notice the wings in my photo, which get them from pond to pond - these guys have got it made.
If you want to drop by my RSPB wildlife gardening blog, it is updated every Friday, and I'd love to see you there - www.rspb.org.uk/community/blogs/hfw
I watched both water-boatmen and pond-skaters breeding in the pond this year. Both were tiny, tiny replicas of their parents. The pond-skaters joined their parents out on the pond as soon as they hatched (or it could have been as soon as they were large enough to see?), the water-boatmen lived together in the shallows until they were almost as large as the parents.
Build it and they will come.