The hosepipe of lurve

Tiny Tuesday: The hosepipe of lurve

Well, all being well it looks as though we might have more common darters in the pond in due course....

There was some competition in the mating stakes earlier on today as there are two male common darters, and so far only the one female.  The bigger of the two males has staked out the pond as his territory - desperately trying to hook up with any females that show themselves and seeing off any male rivals.  However today, a sneakier smaller rival nipped in and bagged the newly arrived young female while the larger male was sunning himself. 

Once he realised what was happening, he tried to break them up, but they found the hosepipe of lurve and got on with doing what comes naturally.  In due course the conjoined pair overflew the pond with the female ovipositing. Its not a big pond by any means, but as long as they hid behind the vegetation the larger male seemed happy to leave them alone.  Eventually though, his patience was tried once too many times and that was the end of that for the day.  The large male went back to his lonely vigil and the courting couple flew off.

The photographer in the mean time gave the hose a quick wipe down ;-)