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I’m pleased that we had a visit from a Broad Bodied Chaser to our newly created garden/wildlife pond. It’s truly amazing just how much a garden pond encourages wildlife to your garden. At first glance (a quick and fleeting one!) I originally though that I had yet another hornet visiting the garden. Hornets are a menace in my area, but not quick to judge, I just stood still to have a closer look at the flying visitor.

I was quick to spot it was a Chaser, but was unsure what type it was. I was aware of the broad bodied chaser but only knew it had a blue body. A quick look at my British Wildlife guide confirmed it was the correct shape for a Chaser, but was the wrong colour as the image in the field guide had a blue body. I quickly googled “uk chaser insect” and looked at the google image search results. There, right in front of me was the exact thing I had just stood and watched hover above my pond. Clicking on the image I was taken to a page for “Broad-bodied Chaser”. The yellow of it’s tail confirmed it was a female of the species. Only the males have a blue body.

This is a new visitor to my garden. Unfortunately I didn’t have anything with me to take a photograph, therefore I have had to use an image from Wikipedia.