Damsels and dragons

Step outdoors at the moment and you may find yourself in a real-life fairytale...

Image: banded demoiselle by Steve Dobromylski - look out for these along the riverside path north of Drayton Lagoon

Yesterday's guided walk was filled with darting, skimming, shimmering damselflies and dragonflies.

It’s a great time of year to enjoy seeing these magical insects. Just wait for a still, sunny day and go for a stroll near water.

Dragonflies and damselflies are the order of insects called Odonata, which means ‘toothed jaws’ - these carnivorous insects really are the dragon of the skies for the small flies and mosquitoes they devour.

Like the dragons of our myths and legends, they’re beautiful too. Electric blue, emerald green, coral red... At Fen Drayton Lakes there’s even gold at the end of the rainbow, as sometimes we’re lucky enough to spot the scarce chaser - a rare dragonfly whose females and immature males are a glorious yellowy orange. Look out for these along the path between the Busway and the Moore Lake hide, as we saw several on the walk yesterday.

Folklore is full of these otherworldly insects. They used to be called the Devil’s Darning Needles, and one story has it that if you fall asleep by water they’ll come and use their long thin bodies to sew your eyelids shut. In the Middle Ages they were even sometimes mistaken for fairies, and it’s easy to see why, with their dancing flight.

Behind the myths, the true story of these creatures is just as fascinating. They’re so ethereal and delicate-looking, it’s startling to learn they’re older than the dinosaurs. Yet fossils definitely show that 300 million years ago their ancestors were thriving – some had a wingspan of 70 cm, the full length of my arm.

Returning to the present, if we want to be able to pass down some of these stories to our own grandchildren and great-grandchildren, we need to look after these creatures now. 

Damselflies and dragonflies live around water, as that’s where they lay their eggs. The disappearance of so many ponds and ditches in the countryside is taking away their homes.

A few weeks ago we published State of Nature report in partnership with 24 other conservation organisations. It's a groundbreaking health check of nature in the UK and Overseas Territories, and one of the things it highlighted was that freshwater and wetland habitats – our ponds, lakes, rivers, streams, ditches, canals, reservoirs, reedbeds, fens and marshes – occupy just 3% of the UK’s land surface, but support around 10% of our species. They're incredibly rich in wildlife and we need to do more to look after them: 57% of freshwater and wetland species for which we have sufficient data have declined, and 29% have declined strongly.

So if a pond is one of those garden projects you’ve thought about but never quite got round to tackling, go for it! You can find great advice here.

What better way to bring the magic of nature closer to home?