The pond's second birthday, 1st June 2010
The pond has not only matured even more, it has had to
come through the worst winter in England since 1963. After several weeks
of freezing, the thaw finally revealed the damage. The pond itself was
unharmed but to our horror, there were dozens of corpses of frogs. Not
only would you be distressed if you saw photographs, we were too upset
to even think of taking any. Despite the small size of our pond and its
isolation from any other water, there were more than 50 dead frogs to
be fished out.
As you can imagine, we were fully expecting that we were
back to square one - no wildlife and masses of dead vegetation. Not only
that, but the once clear water had now turned green. Nevertheless, Sandra
insisted that we should do nothing and let nature take its course. She's
a biologist, so who am I to argue. That was January - but now look:
Taken on 21st May 2010, the first really warm day of the
year, still pea-green but thriving. Dead vegetation has sprung to life
and, to our amazement, a colony of at least 20 frogs has taken up residence.
Here are a few sunning themselves:
Just below the surface of the pond we can see thousands
of tiny back-swimmers (water boatmen). They must only have recently hatched
with the onset of warm weather. Too small to photograph without frightening
the frogs!
It is an endless source of interest watching the activity
from my kitchen window.
And how about this?
Damsel flies mating and laying eggs.
We will be adding further pages over the next few months
with lots of interesting information on gardening to attract wild life,
so please do come back - often. Any advice you may have about what to
do to the concrete corner in the background will be gratefully received.
By the way, the woodpile in the far corner is deliberate
for possible bees' nests and also a home for insects.
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