Current pond life

[King Edward]

I'd been going to post this as a reply in the 'Baby Newts' thread, but it got a bit big so thought I'd put it here.

There's still quite a lot of activity in the ponds here. Several different water beetle species among the leaf litter in the new shallow pond, including a large Colymbetes larva crawling round last night, looking like a prehistoric aquatic armadillo. They especially like the fallen leaves right near the edge (or is that just where it's easiest to spot them?), which had washed up on the edges then were inundated during our recent rain.

Also lots of water boatmen, corixids, mayfly larvae and a fair number of Daphnia as well. Two of the Water Crowfoot plants I added earlier in the year have also put on a late growth spurt, having only recently been resubmerged after spending several weeks exposed on damp sand.

Loads of Water Crickets in the two shady ponds, a few Smooth Newt larvae still active in one and masses of tubifex worms (?) and water slaters in the other.

It's interesting - there are about six ponds here altogether (including my grandfather's two next door), but they're all quite different in the life they support. Just goes to show how there's no 'ideal' garden pond, especially when you see all the standard advice about how a 'wildlife pond' needs to have XYZ features.

Here are a couple of photos of the new (shallow) pond (filled for the first time in May), with the deeper shady pond at the lower left in the first photo and the duckweed-covered tadpole rearing pond (safe from duck predation) on the left. The one thing I haven't really figured out yet is what to do about the liner edges, especially round where the rocks are (where the bank is steep). I don't want to just cover the edges with sand for fear that too much water will wick out into the soil (it wicks up enough currently to keep all the exposed sand damp), so if anyone has any suggestions...

[Billabong Karen]

Wow, that's a lovely pond! And I really like that you have the deeper area, and the duckweed covered small pond too... Regarding the liner, I covered mine with a sort of hemp/sacking, which worked well. But I bet that if you just have a bit of patience, the liner will get covered by plants etc by this time next year...

[King Edward]

That's what I'm hoping - apart from near the shed, where it's pretty dry, I'm hoping that most of the margins will get over grown with grass and blend into the rough grass. The Water Mint (foreground in the 2nd photo) is also sending out a lot of runners in different directions, so that might help.

[Billabong Karen]

My pond was started right around this time last year. The edges are already partly grown over; by the end of next summer I fully expect them to be totally covered by plant growth.

Your pond looks as though it gets quite a lot of sunlight - did you have a problem with blanket weed / algae this summer?

[King Edward]

Early on the pond did go quite green for a short while (not long at all, maybe 2 or 3 weeks)), but cleared very rapidly once Daphnia numbers had built up. Since then water clarity has been excellent.

I did remove quite a bit of blanketweed at one point in the summer - some large masses of it had started to grow, especially down in the deeper areas, and I was worried that it might rather take over. It was quite a benign form of blanketweed, quite fibrous and easy to remove. That was just a once-off and apart from that I haven't had any algal trouble - there is a certain amount in the pond (submerged, not floating) but not of any concern.

The pond was initially filled with well water, which according to our 5-yearly water test is very high in nitrates (35 mg / L). Phosphate isn't shown on the test, but levels are probably pretty low so that might be holding back algal growth. Plant growth has also been pretty slow on the bare sand. Overall, I think algal problems are more a problem associated with poor water quality than with sunlight, so I don't think it should really be an issue.

I did take a lot of care to make sure there was a good range of depths with very gently sloping margins, so I was quite happy just to let the level drop over summer. Stupidly though I didn't take a photo of it at its lowest, when there was a lot of bare sand exposed.

[Billabong Karen]

Super. I'll look forward to seeing photos of it developing next year...

[GCN lova]

hi
nice shots and nice ponds. they look like a good amphibian site and they look big enough for common toads and GCNs. i agree that no ponds should be exactly the same because all ponds have disadantages and advantages. i heard someone built a pond with the shallowest area in the middle!

GCN lova

[King Edward]

At the moment we have a decent population of Frogs, Toads, Smooth and Great Crested Newts, but the Toads and GCN mainly breed in the deeper ponds (about 2' deep) next door. Breeding success doesn't seem to be very good though, since the goldfish eat the GCN and (I think) the GCN eat all the Toad tadpoles (100% mortality). Hopefully that should improve this coming year since I relined one of next door's ponds, incorporating more extensive sloping shallow areas, so hopefully the fish can be restricted to just the current fish pond.

[Wild-Woman]

Fabulous ponds KE. I'll look forward to their development!

[Ukwildlifeo]

Certainly no shortage of pond life in Wat Tyler CP (in the ponds that arnt muddy puddles thanks to a constant stream of dogs disturbing them )

In the last few weeks Ive had 2 large Dyticus species, at least 4 or 5 other water beetles, a couple of beetle larvae species, various dragon a damselflies, phantom midge, water boatmen, backswimmers, pirate spiders and the usual microscopic things Daphnia and cyclops etc.

Things dont quiet down that much in the pond over winter, which is handy when you cant find anything on land to photograph