Damsel debut

After more than a year of havering, we've had our leaky old pond renewed (by a really, really good firm in Bradford called Creative Waterscenes. We'd have done it ourselves, enjoyably though nothing like so well, but age and fears that we'd bungle the liner kept putting us off. Simon and Brian of CW were nice and interesting people to have around and, fittingly, their completion of the work yesterday was celebrated by the arrival of our first damsel fly of 2010. Here it is (above): sorry a bit blurred but it decided to perch high up, beyond my reach. Shortly afterwards I was pottering about in some long grass and disturbed this Straw Dot - shown in the big picture with its antennae out and in the smaller one with them in, but with its little snout showing. Actually the 'snout' is the moth's palps, strange invertebrate organs which seem to combine the work of mouth, nose and radar. The moth should really be called Straw Dots, as you can see. Like some people, it initially appears drab and boring but is anything but.
Creative Waterscenes is on www.creativewaterscenes.co.uk and Penny and I wholeheartedly recommend them. They're keeping busy in spite of the recession, I'm glad to say. Good that a small firm from Bradford is looking after 200 ponds as well as making new ones all the time. The amount of extra wildlife which comes to a garden from a pond can hardly be overstated.