Jun 17th, 2014

Author: donich_admin

Wildlife Pond

We have a large pond (c. 4m across) in our garden. We’ve tried to make it a bit of a haven for local wildlife (or that’s my story for not keeping it well groomed anyway). We seem to have been pretty successful because it is a riot of colour and life at the moment.

Three water lilies are out at the moment (pink and white), together with yellow and purple irises, bog cotton, red campion and wild orchids. On the invertebrate side there are several species of dragonfly (red ones, blue ones, green ones and large ones to be properly scientific) also water boatmen and damsel flies. We also saw a strange creature today which looked a bit like a large prawn and I am still trying to identify. Then we have newts and frogs – yesterday I saw a small froglet which must be one of this year’s hatchlings.

I’m very glad we didn’t put fish in because aside from feeding the heron (and otter!) they would have eaten all the interesting invertebrates. And many of the latter live on midges which are the prime enemy at the moment.

More of the pond in the video….