The hole in the nest box on our house wall is all mouth. A sparrow chick on the cusp of fledging has thrust its head out, beak open, displaying an orange gape ringed with a creamy-yellow flange. It\u2019s an unmissable prompt for the parents: Insert Invertebrates Here.<\/p>\n
I\u2019m watching the spuggies from behind the pond, where I\u2019m perfectly positioned to see the aftermath of another emergence. At the top of a bur-reed, the hollow legs of a dragonfly exuvia (the shed larval casing) grip the leaf blade, while a split in the cuticle shows where the adult has pushed through its exoskeleton.<\/p>\n
When the pond was filled last June, we had to wait only a day before the first dragonfly descended, streaking round the garden like a Golden Snitch, trailing sunbeams and smiles in its wake. Then the female broad-bodied chaser \u2013 often the first species to arrive at newly created ponds \u2013 began ovipositing, tap-tap-tapping with the tip of its golden-brown abdomen, christening our pond with the promise of new life.<\/p>\n
Nic’s pond, created last spring. Photograph: Nic Wilson<\/p>\n
This spring we removed some blanketweed, rinsing it thoroughly in a bucket to release any pondlife. On emptying the sediment back into the water, out sludged a procession of dragonfly nymphs; six, seven, eight or more, so large and muscular I thought for a moment they were froglets. Then, in the recent dry spell, the water level sank to reveal muddy margins and a series of jagged holes where, I suspect, magpies had winkled out unfortunate nymphs preparing to emerge.<\/p>\n
When the rains came the pond refilled, and now the exuviae \u2013 for once I get my eye in, I notice several hoisted up the bur-reeds \u2013 signal that the water-dragons have taken to the skies. I hope they won\u2019t meet the same fate as a newly emerged broad-bodied chaser in my parents\u2019 garden. Having spent hours moulting, inflating and hardening its wings, it was ambushed on its maiden flight by a house sparrow.<\/p>\n
But if they are, so be it. We created the pond to enrich biodiversity, whether that\u2019s from bloodworm to midge to bat, rat-tailed maggot to hoverfly to crab spider \u2013 or, from nymph to dragonfly to the insistent gape of a\u00a0house sparrow chick.<\/p>\n
Under the Changing Skies: The Best of the Guardian\u2019s Country Diary, 2018-2024, is available now at guardianbookshop.com<\/a>. Nic\u2019s book Land Beneath the Waves<\/a> is now out in paperback<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The hole in the nest box on our house wall is all mouth. A sparrow chick on the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":778940,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[26],"tags":[64,63,128,338],"class_list":["post-778939","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-wildlife","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-science","tag-wildlife"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/778939","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=778939"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/778939\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/778940"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=778939"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=778939"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=778939"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}