Final Preparations Begin

With the season hopefully a matter of days away, I have been kept busy preparing pots of reeds for the pond and preparing specific areas for the dragonfly and damselfly nymphs to emerge on. The plan is that I will be able to photograph them as they emerge on the stems and reeds and if necessary, be able to remove the pots from the pond to achieve desired photos and angles. All of the nymphs I have been rearing in my indoor tanks have been put into the pond where they will be able to emerge as and when they want to. I will just have to keep checking every now and then to capture the moment. The past few evenings have seen quite a few Large Red Damselfly nymphs just under the surface with a few starting to breathe in air and I noticed last night, a couple are resting close to some stems I have put in for them to emerge on. Weather permitting, this may well happen in there next week. There have also been a few Hairy Dragonfly nymphs resting close to the surface with one well developed individual spending nearly all the time throughout the day and night with her head and thorax well out of the water. There are hundreds of tadpoles in the pond which the nymphs have been feasting on so this may explain why they are so well developed at this point. I went outside early this morning and took a few photos of her resting up and as can be seen from the photos, the markings are starting to show through and the dragonflies eyes are quite obvious to see.

Hairy Dragonfly nymph resting above the water surface

One of my concerns I noticed last year was that when they are very close to emerging and starting to breathe in air, the spiracles used for breathing pretty much stay open and that if the nymph falls or spends too much time underwater, they can run the risk of drowning. I have a few pots of reeds in place and a good amount of surface weed where hopefully the nymph will remain safe from this. With April arriving next week, we are nearly into that window where they will start to emerge and the season will begin in ernest. I just hope the preparations I have made deliver some good early photo opportunities for me to capture and share.

Hairy Dragonfly nymph resting above the water surface