Nighttime Pond Activities

Posted on by Pete Hillman

Large Red Damselfly (Pyrrhosoma nymphula) early nymph

I have just popped out to the garden pond to see if there was any nightlife there, maybe a frog or a newt. No, not tonight. But to my utter surprise there was 30 to 40 or more of these Large Red Damselfly (Pyrrhosoma nymphula) larvae on rocks beneath the water apparently feeding on algae. I have seen one or two during the day, but now realise these are very much nocturnal feeders, and didn’t realise how many there were in there. The image of the nymph above was taken last year, so they have grown since then.

Large Red Damselfly (Pyrrhosoma nymphula) female laying eggs

I think it all goes back to last year  when I spotted this female Large Red Damselfly laying eggs at the bottom of my Water Mint. Apparently they can lay up to 350 eggs at a time!

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24 thoughts on “Nighttime Pond Activities”

      • Aaah! I wondered why I could not comment in the Reader. Had a horrible thought it was my Laptop. I can relax now.
        Nice photos, Pete.
        BTW while I’m here! Was looking at some of your spider shots yesterday evening but was too tired to write.
        Some seriously smashing shots. The white crab spider and the Wolf … phew. Excellent work.

        Liked by 1 person

      • I can’t seem to get as crystal clear detail in many of my shots as you.
        You’ve been doing this longer than I have. Tips?

        Would you recommend a designated macro lens?
        My Canon has a 18-55mm lens with a macro facility.

        Liked by 1 person

      • Although the 18-55mm lens is a pretty good lens in itself ( I have one for my Nikon), a dedicated macro lens is the one for close up sharp macro. I did a lot of homework before deciding on buying a macro, as they are not cheap, and not all the really expensive ones are always what they are made out to be. When I am doing really close macro, like with the wolf spider, I always manually focus so I have got control over what part of the subject I want sharp. You will never get all aspects of it sharp, unless you focus stack, which is too fussy for me, although I have seen some pretty good results. My macro also has VR, which is a vibration reduction setting which I find helps me get things sharp as I don’t use a tripod. Again, something I find too fussy to work with. If you do invest in a macro, Ark, you will find you won’t want to use much else!

        I also take lots of images of the same subject from as many different angles as the subject will allow, and from different distances. Most will end up in the PC trash, and some I will save.

        Just to note I do post process a little also, mainly levels, some noise reduction and a little sharpening. Also cropping where I think it needs it. It all helps to polish the final image.

        Liked by 3 people

    • Thank you, Jill 🙂 I also prefer damselfies over spiders. I went for years with a compact camera, and was pleased with some of the results. But for close work a dedicated macro lens is certainly the thing. Since I got mine in 2014 I have hardly ever took it off 🙂

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  8. What a great shot of the Large Red Damselfly.

    (I had trouble with WP several times last week, but mainly trying to upload photos, so I gave up in the end. I am so far behind in reading the new posts of blogs I follow that I gave up on that too and deleted all the email notifications and am starting afresh today 🙂 ).

    Liked by 1 person

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