HAMPSTEAD HEATH: Although the sun was not actually shining yesterday afternoon it was bright enough to bring an Aeshna dragonfly out across the reeds of Red Arches pond. I think it was the southern Aeshna (A cyanea), although I had not the heart to catch what must surely be the last we shall see this year. The records say it has been seen as late as 12 November on three occasions. I have seen none later than mid-October before. This solitary female ignored entirely the flies over the water and seemed interested only in the soggy wooden piles which stick out of the mud near the sluice – a favourite place for egg-laying. She soon discovered one of exactly the right degree of sogginess and flew down to it and alighted with her yellowed wings quivering. Very soon the striped tail-end was pressing into the wood with the regularity of a slowly turned sewing-machine needle. Thrust-wriggle-pause-retreat. Three or four minutes were spent on one pile, and then a second and eventually a third.
I took a knife and cut at the places where I imagined she had been laying her eggs, but there was none to be seen. This, perhaps, was a female without a mate, a sterile and anxious creature, possibly the only adult left over the pond.
