Will wild ducks eat the Newts?

[Dogghound]

Originally Posted by diggleken

Fish do occur quite naturally in ponds.

Most ponds naturally dry up or lose sufficient levels of water in the summer to increase predation of fish and contain reduced oxygen levels in the drying out period or are not deep enough during the winter. Its not common for fish to naturally occur within ponds usually when they do its not for a long period or within an oxbow.

Originally Posted by diggleken

It does, I agree though, depend what you want from a pond, but if its wildlife friendly, that to my mind includes fish, so they are OK.

That is a personal opinion fish are proven to constrain amphibian numbers and invertebrates plus reduce water quality so the overall pond is of less value to wildlife. In lakes where they occur naturally they tend not to be as damaging so are less of an issue.

Originally Posted by diggleken

We are talking two small tench here, which will not have a severe detrimental effect.
The pond is a good enough size to take those in my view and invertebrates and insects etc etc will be fine.

Looking at the water quality in the photos they and possibly the ducks/ lack of plants are having an impact. Where do you draw the line. Even two tench could clean up a fair few newt larvae.

[diggleken]

Well, I dont want to argue, you know I respect your views and knowledge Dogg, but I know many old farm ponds - plus some small stream basins, which both have a natural fish population, usually Sticklebacks, Roach and Perch in the ponds, trout and minnows and bullheads in the streams, which seem to be the most commonly transferred species by natural means.
I have wild-fished quite a number of these over the years, and they have a cracking population of Newts and Dragonflies too.
I think we get too carried away by this non-fish approach.
Cheers
Ken

[Dogghound]

Originally Posted by diggleken

Well, I dont want to argue, you know I respect your views and knowledge Dogg, but I know many old farm ponds - plus some small stream basins, which both have a natural fish population, usually Sticklebacks, Roach and Perch in the ponds, trout and minnows and bullheads in the streams, which seem to be the most commonly transferred species by natural means.
I have wild-fished quite a number of these over the years, and they have a cracking population of Newts and Dragonflies too.
I think we get too carried away by this non-fish approach.
Cheers
Ken

Streams are a different issue and cant really be compared as they (usually) have a continual supply of high quality water. Farm ponds may or may not be stocked they may also be un-natural in that they have been purpose built and have human influence on the depth/management etc so they never dry up and are deep etc. I should have said fish dont usually occur naturally in ponds, fish species like perch as you know are very sporadic and can quickly colonise a pond however most ponds are ephemeral or partially so resulting in limited value to fish.

This issue is really down to the impact that fish have, you may go to a pond which has lots of fish and newts but how can you judge it unless you take out the fish and see if the amphibian population stays the same or increases? The point i am making is for obvious reasons wildlife ponds benifit from not having fish in them. I find newts in particular avoid ponds with fish as do frogs with toads preferring them. If I ever manage a habitat for wildlife I try to maximise it for wildlife. For the sake of not having fish in a pond to me it would be better to have 20% more wildlife value and get rid of them.

[King Edward]

Hi Alan,

Thanks for putting the photos up - it's quite different to your average wildlife pond, that's for sure. It looks as if it's designed very much for ornament with the wildlife secondary, so in large part it comes down to what you and your wife see as the main priorities.

The main negative points for wildlife that immediately stand out are:

1. The lack of decent vegetation immediately around the pool, with it being surrounded by rocks, gravel and short-cut lawn - perhaps this could be partially compensated for by planting some denser plants on the unfinished bare areas nearby e.g. long meadow-type rough grass on the bank, dense herbaceous planting around the red maple.

2. The large depth (no/little shallow water - areas just a few inches (or even less) deep are especially good). Having said that, I'd have thought that newts and other creatures on the bottom of a 3' pond would be largely out of reach of upending Mallards.

3. Lack of dense aquatic vegetation (especially in the shallows). Ideally, wildlife likes plants with a tangled underwater structure, rather than e.g. water lilies which have floating leaves but are virtually bare underneath.

4. The 'beach' area doesn't seem essential and could perhaps be replaced by planted shallows (using a layer of clean sand as a substrate for planting). As it stands, you have extensive access elsewhere with hard surfaces all round and perhaps some of this could be sacrificed since the wildlife value of the beach (and other hard surfaces) is approximately zero.

5. Water quality. Not sure what it's like at the moment, but to a large extent high water quality (i.e. nutrient levels as low as possible) could compensate for some of the negative points. Improvement in this might

On the plus side, I can imagine this pond being good for breeding Toads if they get round to colonising it. They generally prefer ponds with fish, since the tadpoles are poisonous and don't get eaten whereas the fish reduce the numbers of newts, dragonfly larvae and other tadpole predators.

My main concern with the tench would be that, by rooting around in the mud, they'd increase the turbidity of the water and release nutrients from the sediment back into the water, causing excessive algal growth. Also, it might not look very good if the water was always green/cloudy (and you wouldn't see the fish anyway). I don't know whether just two would be enough to cause problems in this size pond, but two large tench would probably do a lot of rooting. This problem would be exacerbated if the pond already has high nutrient levels e.g. from nutrient rich water input, from soil used for planting, from fish food.

Unfortunately, I'm not sure that much of the above is much help in answer to your main question - what to do about the ducks. Possibly, you just have to accept that Mallards are a normal part of the ecosystem of natural ponds, and to concentrate on improving other features of the pond to mitigate the impact of the ducks. For instance, with good water quality and lots of aquatic vegetation, then the animals would have plenty of cover to hide in and there would be lots of other food for the ducks to eat.

Taking a different approach, is there any scope for another pond elsewhere in the garden that could be designed specifically for wildlife? Ideally in a less formal area if you have one. It wouldn't necessarily have to be very big, but designed to have clean water, lots of shallows 1"-4" deep, maximum depth perhaps 15"-18".

[Naturenutz]

First of all i think the pond looks great .However i agree with some of the comments in that if you are aiming at making it a natural wildlife pond,you will need some low shrubs or further cover around the edges so any critters entering or leaving are not fully exposed to predation.Also many of the dragonflies both larva and emerging adults need water plants for cover and for emergence above the water line.Drangonflies like to climb up to few feet above the waterline before emerging . plants can be planted in pots around the edges in certain places if you want to control their spread..I agree that tench are not best suited for a wildlife pond.They are mostly found in very large bodies of water which can cope with there disturbance.They are similar to carp in that they are known for rooting around in the bottom silt and disturbing and hoovering up your young newts ,dragonfly larve,Tadpoles etc.You can often tell where the tench are in a pond by the air bubbles that rise to the surface from the disturbed silt/bottom debris.You can identify bottom feeder fish as they have a protruding top lip.Surface feeders have a protruding bottom lip,but in general i agree fish will vastly reduce the wildlife in a pond.

[archer66]

Hi Ken, what bankside/marginal work would you suggest without messing up the general layout?

Hi Doghound, what were you referring to with regards the water quality?
I took your advice and went out with the torch late last night and am pleased to report that there were about 10 newts seen but this is way down on the 40-60 that were swimming about in the day prior to the ducks and no toads or frogs were seen.

Originally Posted by King Edward

Hi Alan,

Thanks for putting the photos up - it's quite different to your average wildlife pond, that's for sure. It looks as if it's designed very much for ornament with the wildlife secondary, so in large part it comes down to what you and your wife see as the main priorities.

Hi King Edward, it started off life going to be a Japanese style pond due to my love of Japan but when all the wildlife descended upon us we had different thoughts hence the addition of the shallow planted area at one end.

The main negative points for wildlife that immediately stand out are:

1. The lack of decent vegetation immediately around the pool, with it being surrounded by rocks, gravel and short-cut lawn - perhaps this could be partially compensated for by planting some denser plants on the unfinished bare areas nearby e.g. long meadow-type rough grass on the bank, dense herbaceous planting around the red maple.

Funny enough the bank was sown with wild flower/meadow mix a month ago which is just starting to come through. What herbaceous planting are you suggesting, this can be done before I turf it. We have got a large bog garden to the right hand side of the garden with Gunneras and Hostas in it, I will get another picture of that for you, not sure how good that is for the wildlife?


2. The large depth (no/little shallow water - areas just a few inches (or even less) deep are especially good). Having said that, I'd have thought that newts and other creatures on the bottom of a 3' pond would be largely out of reach of upending Mallards.

All I could find to plant in the deep areas was the Lilies which are just coming up for this year, but we have been amazed at how much wildlife there i in there, I was netting some falling leaves off the bottom the other week and it was absolutely full of little critters, Newts, Toads etc etc. The shallow area is half 2-4inches deep and the rest about 9-12inches deep and all the planting i just coming up for its second year although we lost a few bits with the snow and ice. The female Mallard actually dives not just upends.

3. Lack of dense aquatic vegetation (especially in the shallows). Ideally, wildlife likes plants with a tangled underwater structure, rather than e.g. water lilies which have floating leaves but are virtually bare underneath.

The shallow area is full of tangled roots from the plants in it, I actually pulled a lot of them up and split them 4/5 weeks ago and the roots were amass, but again any suggestions for different plants is appreciated. The lilies are only in the deep water/main pond area.

4. The 'beach' area doesn't seem essential and could perhaps be replaced by planted shallows (using a layer of clean sand as a substrate for planting). As it stands, you have extensive access elsewhere with hard surfaces all round and perhaps some of this could be sacrificed since the wildlife value of the beach (and other hard surfaces) is approximately zero.

The thing we love about the pebble beach is all the birds that come down and take there baths in it as it leads in to the water for about 9inches or so.


5. Water quality. Not sure what it's like at the moment, but to a large extent high water quality (i.e. nutrient levels as low as possible) could compensate for some of the negative points. Improvement in this might

This was the reason for trying to get some of the fallen leaves out to stop to much decay.

On the plus side, I can imagine this pond being good for breeding Toads if they get round to colonising it. They generally prefer ponds with fish, since the tadpoles are poisonous and don't get eaten whereas the fish reduce the numbers of newts, dragonfly larvae and other tadpole predators.

Again until the ducks appeared the amount of Frogs/Toads was amazing and we loved it, you could see them lying on the bottom and hiding in the crevices of the rocks and 2 months ago we had loads of spawn which is now tadpoles.


My main concern with the tench would be that, by rooting around in the mud, they'd increase the turbidity of the water and release nutrients from the sediment back into the water, causing excessive algal growth. Also, it might not look very good if the water was always green/cloudy (and you wouldn't see the fish anyway). I don't know whether just two would be enough to cause problems in this size pond, but two large tench would probably do a lot of rooting. This problem would be exacerbated if the pond already has high nutrient levels e.g. from nutrient rich water input, from soil used for planting, from fish food.

The tench are bottom fish and not likely to be seen much anyway, they were just put in for ecological reasons which I am not sure was right or wrong. The water has been and is at the moment very clear. The only nutrients from soil would be the aquatic soil I use for planting the pond plants as it is a liner pond.

Unfortunately, I'm not sure that much of the above is much help in answer to your main question - what to do about the ducks. Possibly, you just have to accept that Mallards are a normal part of the ecosystem of natural ponds, and to concentrate on improving other features of the pond to mitigate the impact of the ducks. For instance, with good water quality and lots of aquatic vegetation, then the animals would have plenty of cover to hide in and there would be lots of other food for the ducks to eat.

Taking a different approach, is there any scope for another pond elsewhere in the garden that could be designed specifically for wildlife? Ideally in a less formal area if you have one. It wouldn't necessarily have to be very big, but designed to have clean water, lots of shallows 1"-4" deep, maximum depth perhaps 15"-18".

I did mention this to the wife earlier but it was not greeted to well LOL, if you could see the other end of the garden there is a 45' x 15' conservatory with a 11000 gallon and a 3000 gallon koi pond in side so don't think I will be allowed another pond

Thanks to you all for your input it is much appreciated as I am very much learning about the pond wildlife side and loving it, any more advice will be gratefully received and if anyone is in the Kent area and fancies popping in to give me some advice you will be welcome.

[King Edward]

Regarding the water quality, if all you have is aquatic compost then hopefully it's quite good already. Fallen leaves are fairly low in nutrients so shouldn't be too much of a problem, although it's probably a good idea to stop too many building up as you have been doing. Obviously though you don't want to be dredging all the time and stirring things up.

I hadn't thought about bathing birds using the beach, but I can see why you like it from that point of view. Most of the area though is out of the water - if for instance it was a few inches lower then it would be mostly submerged, giving an area which would warm up well throughout the year. Tadpoles would particularly congregate in this area as they love warm shallows.

About herbaceous planting, I didn't have anything particular in mind but I'd tend to go for robust clump-forming perennials that give good ground cover and flower well (ideally single-flowered varieties, not double, attracting bees, butterflies, hoverflies etc.). Depends what grows well in the conditions. Things like Geraniums, Euphorbias, Marguerites, Cat Mint, Scabious, all sorts of standard things really. The bog garden sounds fine as well and the amphibians should like it.

In the deep area, you could try Hornwort (Ceratophyllum demersum) which can just be dropped in. You could also try other native species such as Curled pondweed (Potamogeton crispus), Water milfoil (Myriophyllum spicatum), Marestail (Hippurus), Frogbit (Hydrocharis morsus-ranae), Water soldier (Stratiotes aloides). The last two can also be just dropped in, the others would need weighting down with a stone so they can root at the bottom.

Lesser bulrush (Typha angustifolia) might also be worth trying in the deep area, since it tolerates quite deep water and you have the space to let it spread a bit. It would probably be best planted in a basket in the shallow area first of all to let it get established, then moved down to the bottom later in the year (since it should really have at least some live/dead leaves above the surface so it can draw air down to the roots).

[archer66]

Hi King Edward, thanks again for your advice, I will get down the garden centre and see what ones of the plants you suggested I can get my hands on, the only one I am a little sceptical about is the lesser bullrush as it says the root system can penetrate the liner which is a little worrying unless I put some in the bog garden but would it take over! All the other sound great thanks.

[archer66]

Hi King Edward, here is a picture of my bog garden as promised, I had a rather unsuccessful trip to the garden centre, the only plant they had in stock was the Horn Wort so I will be trying a different one tomorrow.