Southern Damselfly habitat restoration in Pebblebed Heathlands
The East Devon Pebblebed Heaths support some of the last populations of Southern Damselfly in England. Volunteer Lesley Kerry has been monitoring these damselflies, and their habitat, in this lowland heath for many years, including a population on Colaton Raleigh Common. In the 1990s, the damselflies here bred in a shallow stream fed by a…
Dragonfly recorders needed! Willington Wetlands, Derbyshire
The Wildlife Trust team at Willington Wetlands, Derbyshire, are excited that they will soon be hosting a family of beavers at the nature reserve! The beavers will be released into a 20 acre fenced section of the reserve where they can gnaw and dam to their hearts content. The team hopes that the beavers will…
Dragonflies of Durham
Find out how Dragonflies are fairing across Wildlife Trust sites in Durham; Michael Coates, Durham County Dragonfly Recorder, reports on the recording effort and and results on WT nature reserves. Overall 20 species were seen, an impressive total for a northern county, with Rainton Meadows producing the most species sighted: a total of 16 over the…
Welcome to Pond Ponderings – a pond blog by gardeners of all experience levels
Here you will find regular blog posts, Pond Ponderings, about garden ponds of all types and sizes created by gardeners of all experience levels and different budgets levels too. These posts will be honest accounts of the issues and joys that wildlife gardening and ponds in particular can bring, including highlights of which species move…
Smallford Pits update: no charges from Crown Prosecution Service
Last month, staff and volunteers at the BDS were outraged to learn about the apparent deliberate poisoning of ponds at one of Hertfordshire’s top dragonfly sites: Smallford Pits (read here). This criminal act followed a previous incident in September 2020 during which the ponds were trashed with heavy machinery. Smallford Pits is a designated Local Wildlife…
County Dragonfly Recorder Reports 2020
British Dragonfly Society County Dragonfly Recorder Reports for 2020 are now available. Download them here to review the highlights of the 2020 dragonfly season in your County.
Meet Cephalozygoptera! The newly described, and sadly extinct, Odonata suborder
Researchers from Simon Fraser University, Canada, announced the classification of a new suborder of extinct Odonata after conducting an extensive review of fossil specimens and scientific papers dating back as far as 162 years. Within the historic studies they found descriptions of specimens that matched fossils collected from British Columbia and Washington State. On first…
Dragonfly-inspired nanotechnology in the fight against disease
After almost a year of dousing ourselves in hand sanitiser we are all well aware of the importance of disinfectants in the fight to control the spread of COVID-19. However, scientists at the Imperial College of London are investigating other means of killing pathogens without the use of harsh chemicals. Just like the COVID-19 virus,…
Top Hertfordshire Dragonfly Site Criminally Destroyed
Police and the Environment Agency are currently investigating the destruction of two protected ponds at Smallford Pits Local Wildlife Site near Saint Albans. Local residents were left aghast after discovering that the ponds at their treasured wildlife hotspot had been polluted, with either diesel or petrol, in December 2020. Earlier in September, of the same…
Pond Ponderings: Chapter One of My Pond Story by Carolyn Cooksey
Our Secretary Carolyn Cooksey is our newest Pond Ponderings writer. In chapter one of Carolyn’s pond story we hear about the creation of a garden pond at her new home in Huntingdonshire: Inspired by Fiona’s campaigns on ponds, in my Autumn 2019 update in Dragonfly News, I rather rashly committed to putting a pond…