Why the Pond Edge Rewards Patience

Nothing else in a British garden moves quite like a dragonfly on a warm July afternoon. One moment the air above the water is empty; the next a long-bodied insect is carving a tight circuit an inch above the surface, then hanging in the air as if it has all the time in the world. Sit still at the edge of a pond for ten minutes in decent weather and you will usually see three or four different species. Half the pleasure is working out which is which.

Every British dragonfly and damselfly begins life as an underwater larva, hunting tadpoles and small invertebrates among the weed for a year or two before climbing a stem at dawn and emerging as a winged adult. Once on the wing, though, the two groups behave very differently — and those differences make identification far easier than the guidebooks first suggest.

Three Checks That Never Fail

Before you worry about species, settle the family. Three things will do it:

• Wing position at rest. Most damselflies fold their wings neatly along the length of the abdomen, so the resting insect looks like a single slender needle. Dragonflies hold all four wings open, flat and at right angles to the body. There are exceptions — the emerald damselfly rests with wings half open, and male banded demoiselles sit with their wings spread — but the rule holds for almost everything you will meet in a garden.
• The eyes. Dragonflies have enormous eyes that meet in the middle, or very nearly meet. Damselflies have smaller eyes set wide apart on either side of the head, like the ends of a dumbbell.
• Build and wings. Damselflies are delicate, with narrow, equal-sized wings and a needle-thin abdomen. Dragonflies are chunky, and their hindwings are noticeably broader than their forewings — which is what gives them their darting, powerful flight.

Flight Patterns Give the Game Away

Watch how an insect moves and you will often have your answer before it settles. Damselflies fly weakly, fluttering and drifting low over the water and through the marginal plants, seldom travelling far and rarely rising high. They cannot hover convincingly.

Dragonflies are masters of the air, and each group has its own style. Emperors patrol long, high circuits over open water, hovering briefly before snatching prey mid-flight. Hawkers hunt high and wide, often ranging far from water along hedges and garden paths. Chasers and skimmers launch from a favourite perch, dash out to intercept a rival or a passing fly, and return to the same stem or stone. Darters do exactly what their name suggests, and once you note where one keeps landing you can often creep within a metre of it.

The Regulars at a British Garden Pond

Start with damselflies, which are easier to approach. The large red damselfly is the first of the year, on the wing from late April, with a red abdomen, black legs and black-banded body. From May come the blues: azure damselfly (a U-shaped mark on the second abdominal segment), common blue damselfly (more uniformly blue) and the unmistakable blue-tailed damselfly, which is black with a single bright blue segment near the tip and matching blue eyes.

Among the dragonflies, the southern hawker is the one most likely to come to you, hovering at eye level along a path as though inspecting visitors. The emperor is the largest British species, a powerful blue and green patroller of open water. The four-spotted chaser is brown with a dark spot on each wing and habitually perches on emergent stems, flying up to see off intruders. The common darter and the darker, all-black-legged ruddy darter are the late-summer specialists, still flying into October in mild years.

Where to Watch: Patrol Routes and Perches

Habitat narrows things down fast. Open water away from the bank belongs to emperors and black-tailed skimmers. Sheltered, tree-lined ponds suit brown hawkers and, increasingly, the willow emerald damselfly, which has spread north in recent decades and lays eggs into overhanging willow and alder. Bare banks, fence posts and warm stones are darter territory. If you have flowing water instead, look for the banded demoiselle along slow rivers and canals — metallic blue-green with a dark thumbprint on each wing, fluttering like a butterfly — and the beautiful demoiselle on faster streams, where the male's wings are broadly dark brown.

Within a single pond, the margins matter as much as the middle. Wide fringes of native plants such as water mint, rushes and flag iris give larvae somewhere to climb out and adults somewhere to hunt and roost. A pond with fish tends to hold fewer dragonfly larvae; a fish-free pond with a shallow shelf and plenty of stems will be far more productive.

Timing, Weather and a Notebook

Pick a still, sunny day between about 11am and 4pm, when insects are warm and active. Wind pushes everything into the vegetation, and cloud keeps the smaller damselflies sitting tight. Early June through August is the peak, but the season is longer than many people realise — from the first large reds in April to darters lingering into autumn.

Keep a small notebook or a phone note of what you see, where you saw it and what the weather was doing. Within a season you will have a personal picture of your own water's cast of characters, and you will start noticing the first southern hawker or the last ruddy darter without having to think about it at all.