Allotment Diaries: 20th April 2022 - Pond-dipping

This is part of an intermittent series about owning an allotment. Click here for the Introduction Post. I am NOT a keen gardener, so this series will be telling tales of stuff I learn as the season’s progress. Hopefully you find it interesting, you might find some of it useful, and if you have any comments, questions or even better, some useful tips to share, then please add them below

After the previous post where we found that beetle larva lurking in the pond we decided to come back a couple of days later to see what else was lurking in the depths.

And so we did. 2 days later we headed back to the allotment, with a net in hand, and some pen and paper to record what we see. There is a huge abundance of wildlife where ever we look (and also where we don't!). I love looking for new species of insect, I think its all part of enjoying the world around us, and I believe that if we are to look after this planet, then the first step is to find out what is actually here so it can be protected.

I have written in the past about my Garden Species List (which sorely needs updating) but I have also decided to start a list of all the birds and insects that we can find at the allotment.

This is where I stand at the moment:

128 species isn't bad but I know there is lots more to see here. Hence the reason why we are pond dipping. While here I will keep an eye out in case we can see anything else to add to the list.

[you might think its wierd, but I really enjoy it. Its kinda like train-spotting but much more interesting!]

Right then....Pond dipping - what do you need?

Well, you need a Pond, and a net and a container with some water in to put in any little critters that you find. I also recommend a positive, can-do attitude, but as mine can be hit and miss, I left it to my partner to get on with it.

While here, we might as well try to add more to the list....

Dock Bug seen resting on the side of the shed. I've seen so many of these this year... they seem to be everywhere

He was already on the list, I'll keep looking...

Ah a Wolf Spider. There are lots of different species in this family, and as I'm not really one for taking specimens, it'll will have to stay as a generic Wolf Spider for now. Good news though, its not actually on my list

We did see some more of the pond skaters from a couple of days ago. These have now been added to the list.

They do illustrate the reason for starting a 2nd list seperate from the one at home. We have a pond in the garden, but in the last 5 years I have never seen Pond Skaters on it. The allotment is only half a kilometer away, and we are already seeing different species compared to home.

While I was trying to get a decent shot of a pond skater, my partner called me across... she had caught something....

She carefully picked it out of the net and placed it in the white container

Its a larvae of a Diving Beetle... thats pretty cool! Both the larvae and the adults are aquatic, and both are predators, so for a larvae to be here that means there must be a food chain of sorts in here, they must be eating something.

And then she pulled out this one... absoloutely enourmous, and twice the size of the first!

Surely this has to be the Great Diving Beetle (which is the largest aquatic Beetle here in the UK. Thats really cool.... and then I looked up some more information on them "they feed on tadpoles and even small fish"

Well we do have frogs in the pond, and we did have frogspawn ealier in there year, so I guess many of the tadpoles are easy targets for these voracious predators

oh well... circle of life and all that!

What else is there.

Oh, Pond snails...? that was a surprise. My partner was going to buy some but it looks like they have appeared by themselves, which saves us a job haha

I believe this is a Mayfly larvae.

Its kinda hard to ID these, or in fact any of these larvae... they all look really similar. It'll probably be easier to wait till Summer and ID the adults that emerge then.

And then I have this rubbish picture, I only took this one and then let him go as I thought it was another beetle larva. Looking at it now I think it is more likely to be a damselfly, but this was the only picture I took

I think we'll finish up here. We started the day on 128 species, and ended on 171, so thats an increase of 43, whcih

I did some better pictures of the Great Diving Beetle larva, take a look at the size of those teeth jaws er...oh! Mandibles!

Take a look at the size of the those Mandible! (I'd be worried if I were the size of a tadpole!)

Pictures taken, we put them all back into the pond to carry on their little larva-eat-larva lives

A quick look around again, and I managed to see 2 more new species to add to the list. The first one was this tiny little Weevil Sitona lineatus

And then we saw these Aphids all bunched together on this plant. Aphids are a type of True Bug, and are species specific, which means each species of Aphid almost always feeds on the same foodplant.

The plant in this case was Elder, so these are Elder Aphids Aphis sambuci

So in the end it was a productive afternoon. We managed to gain 43 species of plant and insect, and I got to see this awesome Diving Beetle close up too!

Over the Summer I will be spending more time at the allotment (diiging holes and stuff) but hopefully I will be able to spend some time enjoying the wildlife that will turn up too.

All names confirmed and checked via Wikispieces

Thank you for reading, I hope you found it interesting.

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All Photos taken by @dannewton unless otherwise stated.
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