Sphinx

How on earth is it the middle of June already? Whether I think of this in terms of the end of the academic year (since I’ve finished all my marking, and am up to date with external examiner stuff) or of the end of strict lockdown (however temporary that may prove to be), it’s hard not to be seized by a feeling of panic, at all the things I meant to do and haven’t done, and all the things I’m supposed to get done before the end of the summer that I should have started already. Of course there were Reasons – there always are – but I was so confident that I would at the very least make some progress with my Thucydides music project…

Among the more positive reasons is the one thing I have definitely achieved during the coronavirus lockdown: the new wildlife pond, replacing one that sprung a leak a couple of years ago and in any case was too overshadowed by trees and taken over by an especially aggressive water lily. This took a couple of weekends’ worth of labour to construct – and has absorbed more time ever since, as I can’t resist wandering down the garden regularly to watch the wildlife gradually making it their home.

First it was a lot of little water beetles who just turned up within a couple of days of the pond being filled, and I could spend half an hour at a time just observing them come up to the surface for air and then disappearing back into the depths. They were followed by pond skaters and water boatmen, and then a striking blue dragonfly – a broad-backed chaser – who has decided that this is his pond, and turns up pretty well every day to chase off other male dragonflies and mate with any females who turn up. Apparently they do this, as a decent pond is the equivalent of a really flash sports car for pulling chicks, and just from what we’ve observed there should be a fair few dragonfly nymphs in the pond this year. (Arthur – we had to give him a suitably wide-boy name – was perched on the left-hand flower spike, whence he flies sorties to inspect any intruders, seconds before I took the photo).

A week or so back we were worried by the arrival of an especially large water beetle, as one hears terrible things about Great Diving Beetles and their ferocious eating habits. But at c.15 mm she’s definitely a Lesser Diving Beetle (the sex is indicated by the fact that she’s been laying eggs up one of the reeds, when not swimming energetically round the surface), and apparently they have been considered as potential biological controls for mosquito larvae, so that’s all to the good. Lots of damsel flies, lots of other insects – and this morning there was a frog! I just have to persuade the newts to migrate from the old pond…

It is all very educational, and it is terribly relaxing. I’m not sure if it’s a very good or very bad thing that the WiFi signal doesn’t extend that far, or I’d be out there the whole time…

Update: the water has suddenly and dramatically cleared – perhaps because it’s got cooler, perhaps because of the three inches of rain in the last couple of days and the impact on the ph – and so I can see not just an astonishing number of little beetles and other things, but a lot of translucent creatures that look a little bit like Chinese dragons. Very young dragonfly larvae? Some sort of freshwater shrimp? Watch this space…