Brave New World....

Well... it is for this character; a newly emerged Adult Caddis Fly.

I was in a quandary today as to which image to blip. We spent some considerable time next to the pond today and were lucky enough to see our new friend above (more on him/her later), a lovely new day moth I hadn't seen before (Small Yellow Underwing) as well as a male Chaffinch snaffling some of our Damselfly Nymphs by walking on the Pond Lily and Water Soldier plants; something we really didn't expect! (Video).

We've been lucky enough to have a number of Caddis Fly larvae wandering around the depths of our pond in their makeshift homes assembled from bits of plant stems and grit. This morning we happened to think about them and how we hadn't seen any for a while and how it would be great to see an adult... So guess what I spotted this afternoon dragging itself onto the pond surface? Yep, this character :-) From start to finish he took about 20 minutes to extricate himself from his larval case and spent another 20 drying off and resting before we had to deposit him somewhere safe and dry from the shower that drove us indoors.

So there we are, our first ever Caddis Fly and we saw him/her emerge :-)