Eastern Pond Hawk

Dragonfly on a 4 o'clock bud

Cool shot. We don't live near enough to water to see many dragonflies. And when I do see them at a pond, they never hold still long enough for me to get them. I'm gonna have to try getting pictures again now that I have a decent zoom and can be sneakier, LOL~

GW: It's not hard to put in a pond. As soon as you do, they will be everywhere in your yard. I have all different ones in mine since I put a pond in the front yard. Some are quite beautiful. Here's one I managed to snap in front of my pond. I'd never seen them this color before

We have a small pond, just 135 gallon. We don't really seem to get dragonflies, though. The tree roots are just unreal in our yard, so the only way we'll get a bigger pond in is if we bring in soil and do the pond above the ground level. :(

GW, I think it's time to start hauling soil! 135 gal is much too small. Think big. Ours is about 800 gal. You need to have some still water for lilies in order to get dragonflies. That's what they like most--still water and lily pads to land on.

LOL, our whole yard is only 40' wide! ;) If you wanna come up here and haul soil, feel free. I know I'm not up to it, and I doubt Howie will want to (not this year, anyway). I'd love to have a bigger pond, though. Someday!

BG, tell me about your pond, or better yet, show us a picture! I am going to make one this spring, all by myself so it will be a slow process and I need ideas.

HAY GARDENWIFE: I HAULED OUT 10,000 YARDS OF DIRT WHEN I DID MY POND,ITS 200FT X 100FT 20 FT DEEP

This message was edited Saturday, Jan 4th 3:49 PM

PONDVIEW, would you like a working vacation in FLorida????

I have two pons connected by a trickle under a bridge. One is about 12ft. by 9 ft, the other is smaller. Right now since it has been freezing at night I have the cattle trough electric heater connected to be sure there is some unfrozen water so there will be oxygen for the goldfish, of which there are 50 or so in the large pond. I loved the pictures of the dragonflies. There are a few around my pools but not as pretty. I have a collection of 10 or so glass dragonflies hanging by fine fishline from the ceiling area out from the window in my living room. rutholive (Donna)

I had a gorgeous pond for about thirty years. Then came raccoons and killed all the fish and kept digging it up, devastating it (and me) repeatedly until I gave up and filled it in. Where do racoons come from in a residential neighborhood? I used to think they were so cute :-(

Bwaaaahahahahahahaha...They've found residential neighborhoods make GREAT digs, Ulrich. Drain systems to use as subways, plentiful goodies pre-packaged in Hefty sacks and trash cans, and tasty koi morsels just ripe for the picking. :S

Watch this site for a picture of what used to be the pond.

Here it is. The yard is 40 ft wide, the ex-pond is 12.

Oh, bummer!! :( With smaller ponds, you can put netting or hardware cloth over them to deter cats, coons and other predators...But that's pretty big for such a precaution. What a shame!

You should have seen the water lilies and other plants. There were dragon flies and damsel flies of many different colors.
I was considering a wire mesh enclosure, but that would have had to be rather elaborate and not looked natural.

True :( Maybe the black bird netting would be sufficient? I don't know if raccoons will cease trying after being thwarted a few times, though.

A raccoon killed the pet guinea pig of a neighbor's little daughter. He "thwarted" it on a later visit with his shotgun. That did not didcourage its relatives from raiding my pond at all. I was tempted to get a shotgun also.