Here be Dragon.....flies

No, this is not a reference to Games of Thrones (which features dragons if you've never watched any of the epic series) but to the large number of Dragonflies we have had this year.

We've occasionally had them but not in great numbers. The mystery of why this sudden change in the pulling power of our garden was revealed yesterday when I visited my neighbour two doors away. As a horticulturalist she has an immense knowledge of plants and with an acre of mostly base lawned grass and hedging to play with, in four years she has transformed it into a wildlife mecca.  I wondered if I had stumbled into an alternate reality or some Disney cartoon with woodpecker and three buzzards coming in on cue. So many more bees than our garden which is a cottage garden and bee friendly but this was on another level.

Female Migrant Hawker - no longer an uncommon visitor

Added to the huge stocks of plants which fill the 10' deep beds the house suffered from a moat like feature which basically meant flooding almost up to the house itself. As a result, diggers and drainage was created to make a more permanent water feature of a long pond mirroring the ridge and furrow features in the adjoining meadow and in part of her garden. The wild irises must have remained dormant for years but this year sprung into life as a result of not being mowed out of existence.

The dragonflies followed.

I watched a Migrant Hawker dart and chase around the new "moat" and then head over the fence into our neighbours (and probably our garden was to follow).

The mystery was solved.

So here are a few photos I took before I knew why we suddenly had these amazing creatures flying around the patio.

Closeup of Female Migrant Hawker Dragonfly

Red Darter?

Male Migrant Hawker having a rest