To ensure that I spent at least some time clearing the area round my pond today rather than photographing the inhabitants, I locked my camera in a cupboard till after lunch. Even visits from Common Darter and Southern Migrant Hawkers to the garden were ignored while I tackled the excess vegetation around the pond. In the afternoon, I settled down for a couple of hours recording the life in the pond now much easier to access. No Dragons but there was a Willow Emerald Damselfly, lots of Wasps and Bees plus Pond Skaters and Trypoxylon attenuatum Slender Wood-bore Wasp. The Wasps were mainly Europaean Paper Wasps Polistes dominicus - a first record for my garden and obviously breeding somewhere nearby from the amount of activity.
The first pond skater image rivals any Shakespearean tragedy with the Pond skater standing over and about to stab its victim (a Pond Olive).
