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On Sunday I spotted the first frogspawn of the year in the stream running through Peckham Rye Park. I say stream, it's more of a municipal water feature, with narrow stretches of running water between a series of small pondlets and gentle water

with water.We're not quite all the way there. The pond is full of water and has already taken on a deep green bloom as the algae and microbes start to establish an ecological balance, but the pond surround needs to be planted up and after the soil has settled

, using railway sleepers, three high (about 50 cm), to make a raised water body. Triangular in shape, 2 metres long, with a deep corner dug down a further 50 cm and a shallow corner for marginal plants. Three species of damselfly, two species of dragonfly

in when the old one sprung a leak. Our pond is raised, three railway sleepers high off the ground, so these two females and a male had managed to scramble up and climb in. There's not much else going on in the water yet - no boatmen or beetles or skaters

, and its early emergence was triggered by water warmed in the hot weather we've had recently.The nymphs of these large dragonflies start to crawl up out of the water at sunset, heaving themselves up a reed or rush stem. The adults then spend the night

it will not need to return to the water until March 2011 at the earliest. In the meantime it will come out each night from about March to October and prowl about hunting bugs, slugs and any other small creeping things it can get its jaws around.I always get

After the frantic time of summer holidays, when it's as much as I can do to remember to mow the lawn occasionally or throw a bucket of water on anything that's drooped dangerously, we are edging back to the normal routines of work, school and ... a

that breeds in the smelly stagnant water you find in flooded rot holes in large trees where branches have fallen off. It also likes nutrient-rich ditches, (especially near farm manure heaps), stinking sulphurous woodland pools full of rotting fallen leaves

, but the combination of dry day (getting me out), clear water and the slanting rays of the sun, have all conspired to make this an exciting event.There is something much more primordial about a newt than, say, a frog or a toad. Perhaps it’s the dragging crocodilian

might flush out insect prey (they bob more in poor light), be a recognition signal to other wagtails nearby or to disguise them against the rippling and splashing background of the moving water that they regularly frequent.Who knows? My favourite though