When at thursley common back in June I tried some pond dipping off one of the board walks. When filling the tray with water before using the ent I scooped up a water spider, which is rather excellent considering Ive only ever seen 2 before. I caught quite a few in the end, they seeme d to be doing well in the probably very clean water there.
I tried using my photographic aquarium outside there but the aquarium got covered in fingerprints while sterilising and then moving it around so I had to do a lot of photoshopping to remove them and reflections and dirt specks in the water just to get them half presentable.
Thursley common is a good site for small red damselfy as it has a number shallow water bodies which warm up quickly prefered by the species. I found some of the larvae or nymphs of this species.
Also found was a palmate newt adult and tadpoles. There is no definate way to seperate smooth and palmate newt tadpoles but the presence of an adult palmate combined with the acidic and soft water found in peat bog water bodies strongly suggests the tadpoles were palmate newts.
