The Dragonfly pond at Grafham Water sits in a small grassland at the southern end of Littless Wood.  Originally it consisted of two convex ditches some 10m apart at one end, but nearly meeting at the other, with an adjacent path near water level and another further out and up on a bank made from some of the spoil from the initial excavations. 

Created in 1987 as part of the European Year of the Environment, as its name suggests, to provide a breeding habitat for Dragonflies as well as supporting part of the population of Great Crested Newts present on site.

It served its purpose admirably well, attracting several species of Dragonfly, including various hawker and chaser species as well as an occasional skimmer and a variety of Damselflies.  However, by the mid nineteen nineties the pond had started to vegetate over despite a number of attempts to clear it manually and the decision was made to deepen it carrying the work out over two years to help keep the continuity of the habitat.

As can be seen the decision was made to continue to pile the spoil from the works into the central area between the two parts of the pond. 

The habitat quickly recovered from the work with areas of open water between clumps of emergent aquatic vegetation once again providing ideal breeding areas for both dragonflies and newts.  But, again the comparative narrowness of the open water areas meant that over time, despite regular maintenance, the vegetation once again encroached into the open water areas.  And, because of the placement of the spoil it became more difficult to use mechanical means to slub out the pond.

In 2012 it was decided to attempt to both widen and deepen one half of the pond through the excavation and removal of the low path on that side, using a small excavator and placing the spoil on the outer bank.

Once again, this work was initially successful but the loss of the path (where the digger is sitting in the above picture) made access for regular manual maintenance of open water areas more difficult. 

This lack of management allowed the establishment of Willow in some areas of the pond and the proliferation of Reed and Reedmace in a floating root mat over the open water.  Whilst some of this was removed during regular manual maintenance, the habitat slowly degraded over time.

In 2023 a somewhat radical solution to the ongoing problem of vegetation was proposed.  The removal of the central bank of spoil. 

After various discussions it was decided to go ahead with this work.  A location was found elsewhere on site for the arisings to be piled and a contractor engaged to carry out the work.  This commenced in mid-January of 2024.

Now completed, this work should give ease of access to both areas of deep water permitting the manual removal of Reed and Reedmace as necessary whilst allowing the establishment of Reed and other emergent vegetation in the shallow central area which can be controlled by mechanical cutting on a rotational basis.

It is hoped that work will allow the continued use of the pond by both the Dragonflies after which it is named and a myriad of other aquatic species for which it is now eminently suitable.