I have had (as far as I can see) only a couple of deaths, great pond snails, over the winter. This morning, once the ice had melted, I spent some time peering into my pond. There were good numbers of daphnia, damselfly larvae and caddis fly larvae (with their spiky vege-houses) and tiny wormy things (midge larvae?) moving around. Also snails, corixids, backswmimmers and even a couple of large female frogs moving about on the bottom.
It is wonderful just how resilient the pondlife can be, even less than a couple of weeks from appearing like a frozen, lifeless tomb.
Now wishing my life away for the frogspawn (6 portions so far
) to hatch out - some eggs appear to have a slight grey cast - probably these were affected by the freezing (down to -3 for last 2 nights) and may no longer be viable.
M