The Dragonfly Ambassador

This week, my new pond has continued to be buzzed by up to six dragonflies at a time, including a couple of egg paying pairs.

Right now at the tail end of the season, they are all Common Darters, the little red or yellowish ones, and they are very fond of sunbathing on planks and benches, like this male:

The number of dragonfly and damselfly eggs that must have been laid in my pond this year must be in the thousands, so it will be interesting to see how many emerge next year, my first 'home grown' dragons.

When I moved in, there were already three ponds in the garden, all of which are fairly substantial by garden standards, all being about a couple of metres by a metre across. However, all have been hopeless for dragonflies, because they are deep under the cover of trees - I have yet to see a single dragon visit any of them.

So a sunny position is clearly a must for dragonflies, but what are the other essential ingredients?

Well, at the British Birdwatching Fair this year, I had the pleasure of meeting a man who has been championing dragonflies for over 25 years now - Ruary Mackenzie Dodds. So I grabbed the chance to get a copy of his new book, "The Dragonfly-friendly Gardener" to see if I was doing anything else right - or wrong!

It's a sweet little book, 56 pages long, the kind of thing you can read in one sitting. So, what would Ruary's advice be?

"Choose a spot that gets maximum sunshine." Yep, I get a big tick for that with my pond. Now the sun is dropping lower in the sky, part of the pond is falling into shade and the dragonflies shun that like the plague.

"Good water quality is vital for drgonflies. They are very sensitive bio-indicators." I've been sticking to rainwater to top up my pond, and just tolerating the drop in water levels over the summer. By putting a layer of gravel in the base of my pond, it is just like the tide has gone out but that's better than exposing an ugly liner.

But how big should the pond be? "Big is best, small is fine," says Ruary. "A pond with a surface area of 14 square metres is ideal, but something in the order of 3.75 square metres will do."

That point I do think is important. You hear talk of 'small ponds' and 'big ponds', but once you get to something the size of a washing up bowl, you really are talking 'mini' and your chances of any dragon coming to visit are slim.

Yes, you need to think safety for children when you put in a large pond. And escape routes for creatures that might fall in like hedgehogs are vital, but that's where shallow margins come into their own, because dragonflies and amphibians love those too,

Add in emergent and aquatic vegetation and you've the perfect recipe for a whole colony of dragons to settle.

The rewards? Amazing encounters with astonishing insects. No wonder Ruary felt compelled to be their ambassador!