How many of you have wildlife ponds?

[acherontia]

Recently I’ve been doing some research on the threat to UK amphibians. I’m no expert but I’ve gleaned that our common frog, amongst others, may become uncommon due to the amount of building/land changes that has been going on.

Although various authorities seem to be making ‘payback’ provisos for replacement wildlife areas when they grant planning permission and there are various projects to dig out new ponds the water areas in gardens are vital to create ‘wildlife corridors’ (buzz phrase) to help the ‘wanderings’ of frogs.
This would help to prevent a depleted population degenerating into a small genetic pool that is more susceptible to disease etc.

This year the pond that I dug last year (to replace the old one) was absolutely inundated with mating frogs and it made me think that it wasn’t necessarily a good sign.

It seems that for every wild plant and wildlife area we create in our personal front and back garden 3 other households in the village pave/slate/deck and generally destroy much needed grass and plants that insects live on – and this impacts on amphibians and birds too.

One interesting fact - The world's 290 Million ponds absorb more carbon than the oceans do.

Please cheer me up folks and tell me I’m not the only one that makes an effort!!

Acherontia

PS – I’ve started reading ‘The Silent Spring’ too – I’m hoping that it may cheer me up???

[lol geoff]

I wouldn't call my pond a wild life pond it's more of a communal pond. I keep fish and have non-native ornemental plants growing in abundance however there is also a healthy breading population of frogs and newts. I have not seen any toads in or around the pond. There is a resident grass snake that has taken some frogs and possibly a fish or two. We are on a heron's flight path but to my knowledge we haven't had a visit yet. It provides a home for the larvae of lots of different water insects including mayfly, dragonfly, damselfly, water beetles and pond skaters. It is used by the local cats, foxes, hedgehogs and birds as a watering hole and bats hunt over it in the evening.

So my pond never has been a wildlife pond but a lot of wildlife happily use it.

[Dutchess]

I have three ponds.

A substantial, large fishpond (which houses various fish as well as wildlife).

A medium sized wildlife only pond.

A very small, still and shady newt pond (which they adore!)

To me, a garden without a pond is like a house with no pets....

hth

D.

[tufftie]

Originally Posted by Dutchess

I have three ponds.

A substantial, large fishpond (which houses various fish as well as wildlife).

A medium sized wildlife only pond.

A very small, still and shady newt pond (which they adore!)

To me, a garden without a pond is like a house with no pets....

hth

D.

Now that's just greedy!!!

It sounds lovely The small shady dew ponds in Friston Forest have lots of newts in

[Wild-Woman]

Luckily we seem to have a string of ponds along our road, so the frogs have a decent range for meeting and mixing up the gene pool. Our neighbour has a visiting Grass Snake that comes in for a nice juicy frog or for a lighter snack, a newt.
I have to agree about the thoughtlessness that folk show when they just 'have to' have a drive, front garden etc concreted over for their precious petrol guzzler.
The house opposite has a block paved frontage that hasn't got one plant or blade of grass growing through. The awful thing is that not only is it herbicided to death but they pour gallons of water away over it cleaning it!

[tufftie]

There's one in our plans for the garden - really looking forward to it There is a stream that runs through the garden that's full of wildlife but not really a pond!

[smartie]

We have had a pond here for 20 years and it is full of newts. We also get a few frogs, but not as many as we used to. I occasionally see a toad in the garden - but I know there are more that I don't see as I hear them a lot. We also have large red and azure damselflies breeding and sometimes, if we're lucky, southern hawker dragonflies.

When we can find the time we're going to add a second pond and a small stream, but I don't know when that might be. We're also going to dig a tiny pond at the allotment.

So far as I know only one of our near neighbours has a pond, though all have decent-sized gardens.

[ron1863]

No ponds, just a river running along the bottom of the garden

[BloomingMarvellous]

Had a Pond for 10 years and this year seemed to start off pretty slow with the Frogs and Spawn, but it's all under way with plenty of happy frogs, seen the Male and Female Newt's this week. Had plenty well I'd say over twenty Damsel Fly's emerge and transform from the pond already, but i'm having a big problem with Blanket Weed this year. Looking forward to the big hairy Dragon Fly's now. Plenty of insects, never seen so many in the past 10 years.

[Pete84]

One interesting fact - The world's 290 Million ponds absorb more carbon than the oceans do.

acherontia may i ask where you got that stunning piece of information from.
it's absolutely incredible.

i've read quite a lot on the environment and climate change (i'm in no way an expert though) and i've never come across this before.


i know 290 million ponds is a lot of ponds but the ocean is a mighty big place too. wow !!! :-)