Affairs of the heart for darting dragonflies

Heath Pond, Petersfield, Hampshire They flew rapidly round each other in a duel slewing left and right in ever tightening circles

A dragonfly skimmed towards us, the whir of its wings like the sound of a fingernail being run back and forth across the teeth of a plastic comb. It seemed to be displaying accompanying behaviour - flying just ahead of a woman pushing a pram so as to prey on the tiny insects disturbed by the trundling wheels.

Peeling off to the left the dragonfly arced back and alighted on the edge of the sandy path near the pond. It was a male broad-bodied chaser (Libellula depressa), its fat, flattened abdomen powder blue with yellow-spotted flanks.