Hextol: An aerial invader took us by storm

We’ve had spiders so big the tips of their legs still protruded from beneath an upturned pint pot, wasps that continued to crawl menacing after you even when separated from their abdomens, a sparrowhawk that brushed my face with its scimitar-like wings, slugs so hideous they look as though they would make your flesh sizzle if you touched them, and a mouse that kept popping its head out of a hole in the top of the dog’s meal bin like the commander of a Panzer IV on the Western Front.

Add to that hedgehogs, bats, rabbits and a dead cat, and it makes quite a collection. But none of these visitors had quite the impact of an aerial invader which took us by storm the other day.

It was a red hot afternoon, and after a couple of hours basking on the sunlounger in the garden, I decided to take a little respite inside.

I had not been in my armchair more than five minutes when my ears were assaulted by the piercing scream I know only too well – Mrs Hextol was in serious distress.

I sprang to my feet, expecting that a bird had yet again managed to get into the conservatory, an occurrence which causes extreme distress to my dear wife.

As usual when these things happen, the conservatory door was slammed shut, with Mrs Hextol hyperventilating against it.

“You shouldn’t feed the birds if you don’t want them coming in now and again,” I said for the umpteenth time, but then I heard a rather chilling noise from behind the door.

My hearing is rather worse than that of a post, but even my clapped out ears could pick up the angry whirring coming from behind that door, and make out the clatter as the intruder hurled itself against the double glazing.

“I don’t know what it is, but I don’t think it’s a bird,” I ventured as I prised Mrs Hextol’s clawed fingers from the door handle.

As I stepped into the conservatory, the din grew even louder, and something flashed past my ear like Baron Manfred von Richtoffen swooping on a helpless herd of Sopwith Camels in his Fokker Triplane.

It crashed against the window, and hung there, momentarily stunned, and I was able to see the visitor was a monstrous dragonfly, well over three inches long and with a wingspan of similar dimensions,

Its banded tail of shimmering blue, green and black pulsated rhythmically, and its four gossamer wings were outspread – but only momentarily.

It was soon off on another sortie, swooping round the conservatory like Charles Lindbergh in vain search for the exit, but all it found was more glass to crash into at high speed. However, I noted even in its obvious distress, the creature was hoovering up hordes of midges which had also come in out of the heat as it droned about.

My usual tactic when birds get in is to guide them into a corner, and then enfold them in a tea towel before letting them go. It usually works, at the expense of generous squirts of guano about the place, but when I picked up a clean towel there was a heart-rending plea from Mrs Hextol.

“Don’t kill it,” she begged: “It’ll make such a mess on the window, and I’ve just hoovered.”

I assured her I had no intention of deliberately doing in such a beautiful creature, and flapped ineffectually at it with the tea towel as it did an Immelmann Turn, followed by a barrel roll.

The windows and outside door were all open, but it was unable to locate any of them, as it buzzed about like a mini microlight in a tumble drier.

Eventually though, my flapping paid dividends, and it disappeared through the door with a last defiant flap of those amazing wings.

Quite what the dragonfly was doing so far away from its normal aquatic habitat remains something of a mystery. We have never had one in before, or even seen one in the Hextol Towers grounds.

The only open water we have is a bird bath, the source of endless entertainment during the lockdown as sparrows, starlings, blackbirds and doves perform their spectacular ablutions, but it’s hardly a spa for insects the size of the Harpies from Jason and the Argonauts.

Anyone lost their pet dragon?