Any ideas? red and about 4-6mm long.

Found in a british garden pond. Photographed with a 70-200 on bellows whilst in a glass of water. flash balanced on top.

First real macro experience. Not much going for it as a photo, compositionally, but a good excercise, and definitely ok to get an ID from. Fun.

Green stuff is duckweed, and little bugs are what I know as water fleas(daphnia)

Nice find. I think it's a chironomid (non biting midge) pupa--you can see the wing cases at the bottom of the photo, but on the side pointing towards the surface if you see what I mean), the white stuff is the 'gills'. The larvae are usually called 'bloodworms'.

Conor

Cheers, I know bloodworms well, i feed them to my fish regularly!

I didn't recognise the pupal stage though. thanks for the info.

The red colour is haemoglobin, which helps the blood to absorb oxygen in their somewhat anaerobic environment.