DRAGONFLY HABITAT:
With help from the Dragonfly Society we have created a pond which already, after 1 summer, has become a haven for dragonflies.
Over the course of summer 2016 these species were recorded:
Broad-bodied chaser
Southern Hawker
Azure Damselfly
Common Darter
Humble beginnings, but I would expect that more species will colonize the pond over subsequent summers. This will be aided by the aquatic planting we did last spring - a range of native aquatic plants were introduced and they have thrived.
Plants planted - Marsh Marigold, White Water Lilly, Water Mint, Sweet Reed Grass, Common Bull Rush, Purple Loosestrife, Flowering Rush, Yellow Flag, Water Forget-Me-Not, Brooklime, Water Plantain, Rigid Hornwort, Reed Canary Grass, & Water Starwort.
It is a pond rather a lake - a body of water is classified as a lake if a white swan can take off. Swans require 100 yards to achieve this - the pond at Underhill Wood Nature Reserve is just under 90 yards long.
The pond being carved out of the land.....we started work in early spring 2015, construction was completed by mid-summer 2016 and it was full by January 2nd 2016.
This work, which took about 6 weeks, was done by Paul Millard Construction - Paul and Dan (the expert digger man) were amazing, bringing there expertise to this project...and look at the result.
The pond filled within 6 months and this is late winter, January 2016.
Species which have been identified consistently utilising the lake at UWNR:
Dragonflies:
Broad-bodied chaser, Libellula depressa; Common Darter, Sympetrum striolatum; Emperor, anax imperator; Four-spotted chaser, Libellula quadrimaculata; Migrant hawker, aeshna mixta.
Damselflies:
Azure damselfly, coenagrion puella; Common blue damselfly, enallagma cyathigerum; Blue-tailed damselfly, ischnura elegans; Large red damselfly, pyrrhosoma nymphula.