After I brought the newt larvae back to the pond from which the plants came from I thought the larger microorganisms would bounce back...but they didn't. And now I think I know why - there were three damselfly larvae which continued to feast on everything that moved. One of them died and I didn't see the other two for some time, so I thought they were gone as well...
Guess who crawled out of the water today on Jan. 4th 2025 at 8pm when it's -2°C outside and there are no other insects in sight for months to come....


some details:


Of course this wasn't planned and I had to act quickly - once they are done they are ready to fly and catching them would be very difficult. So I just used two LED panels as a light source and the Sony A6700 with the Sigma 150mm with a polariser, using the auto-focus bracketing feature (which worked really well).
Using a rail would have been far too slow, the damselfly was starting to get real active.
Sadly as there's no food source, no place to hide and hibernate (it would become an instant damsicle) I had to put her in a killjar, she/he never stood a chance emerging at this time of the year
