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’s an unmissable prompt for the parents: Insert Invertebrates Here.
I’m watching the spuggies from behind the pond, where I’m 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.
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 – often the first species to arrive at newly created ponds – began ovipositing, tap-tap-tapping with the tip of its golden-brown abdomen, christening our pond with the promise of new life.
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.
When the rains came the pond refilled, and now the exuviae – for once I get my eye in, I notice several hoisted up the bur-reeds – signal that the water-dragons have taken to the skies. I hope they won’t meet the same fate as a newly emerged broad-bodied chaser in my parents’ garden. Having spent hours moulting, inflating and hardening its wings, it was ambushed on its maiden flight by a house sparrow.
But if they are, so be it. We created the pond to enrich biodiversity, whether that’s from bloodworm to midge to bat, rat-tailed maggot to hoverfly to crab spider – or, from nymph to dragonfly to the insistent gape of a house sparrow chick.
• Under the Changing Skies: The Best of the Guardian’s Country Diary, 2018-2024, is available now at guardianbookshop.com. Nic’s book Land Beneath the Waves is now out in paperback
