I try my best to give nature a home but the other day, nature took things a bit too literally.
We have an ancient but very warm conservatory and on Friday, a massive dragonfly decided it would quite like to move in.
My little girl found this very exciting, but once it was inside, the dragonfly didn't share her enthusiasm and flew around, desperately trying to get out.
I could only get the briefest of glimpses of it I tried to help it back into the garden, but from my vague description, my clever colleague reckons it could have been a brown hawker or a southern hawker (like the one in this stunning photo by Richard Revels, which was taken from RSPB Images).
The alleged hawker managed to get back outside fairly quickly but I was curious as to why it was near my house at all. I assumed it would only live near a pond and (to our shame) we don't have one. However, my clever colleague says that adult dragonflies don't need to live near water as they are busy in hedgerows and woodlands looking for insects. (They do of course need to head to water to lay their eggs though.)
We have a lovely woodland near us so I'm hopeful that we may see more of these splendid creatures - although maybe just in the garden as my conservatory is clearly no place for a dragonfly.