Topic: New visitor!

[Mrs Ava]

My darling went and fed the fish today - still doing well with 3 comas, who are mating furiously, and 2 silver blue orf, when, out of the corner of his eye he spotted something.  Not a frog, there were several of those sitting in the marsh marigold eyeing him suspiciously, but something different....something moving like a fish, but it had legs!  YES, WE HAVE NEWTS!  We no nothing about them, have no idea where they could have wandered in from, but guess we just leave them to go about their business undisturbed.  The foliage in the pond is finally starting to thicken up, the water lilly now has pads on the surface and the reeds are finally growing.  We are very happy pond owners of Essex!  ;D

[flossie]

Can we have a picture of your pond please?

[Mrs Ava]

You can, I will take one at the weekend.  It is only dinky, really only meant to encourage some wildlife, and because I love the sound of water so it has a little stone stream running into it.  I will get on the case!

[Gardengirl]

How lovely to have newts Emma :)  Our daughter-in-law gave us a couple a few years back, but I don't think they survived as we never saw them again.  I heard somewhere (may have been on this thread) that newts can drown if they cannot easily get out of the water so maybe that is what happened to ours.  I feel really guilty :(

[Mrs Ava]

Awww, don't Pat.  They may have just wandered off to another pond locally.  Number one son and I saw him again when we got in from school - a good size and swimming happily around.  They can get in and out on the plants and up the pebble filled stream so fingers crossed all will be well.  I am chuffed!  ;D

[djbrenton]

When I was given a large clump of spiky plant things ( arum???) for my new pond I think our newt ( Peter ) came with it. I was busy ( can you really be busy sitting watching a pond?) watching him the other day as he disappeared on the far side of the weed. Imagine my joy when two more shot out of this side. Maybe there were 3 all along and I just never saw them together. My workrate on the plot has halved since acquiring a pond to watch.

[saddad]

Sulking Now, we haven't got Newts, there are some on the site allegedly!
 :'(

[angle shades]

I have lots of newts,toads and frogs at lottie site ,but no pond :)/shades x

[djbrenton]

Pondwatch update.

I bought a couple of ramshorn snails the other week and today spotted a completely different type in the pond too. It's got a very pointy shell and is very light coloured. The big news today though is that I spent half the day rescuing baby dragonflies. Three of them have hatched ( or whatever they do ) and each in turn fell into the pond when first trying to fly. I've had to fish each of them out. Guess how much work I got done today after spotting them!

[saddad]

Now I really am going to sulk, haven't got Dragonflies either, but again there are some nearby. Did see a couple of Bats at Dusk yesterday, having been told they were around but not having seen them before!
 ::)

[djbrenton]

And 2 more new sightings ( aren't new ponds exciting?). Firstly, I have some sort of beige shrimpy looking thing with a head like a preying mantis. It's about 2cm long and crawling around,
Secondly, some 4 inches ( see, I know both metric and imperial) down there's a 1 inch layer of millions of little things spurting around. No idea what they are but they'll be ideal tadpole fodder once they turn carniverous.
Oh yes, and 1 of the baby dragonflies paid a brief visit today. What a startling electric blue colour!

[Mrs Ava]

Two newts, we have 2 newts!  Had a clean out today, well not a clean out, just oiked out smoe blanket weed and some leaves and cut back some of the flowering marigold now it is finished, and spotted newt number one, then as I rooted around pulling out blanket week, found newt number 2 (which made me jump!).  Also several HUGE frogs, and at least 1 toad.  We don't get dragonflies but damselflies by the trillion!  Lots of little midgey type things over the pond this evening - good for the local birdies and frogs!

[djbrenton]

Having consulted the net it seems mine are damselflies too, and the two different beige things are damselflies at different larval stages.

[clara]

In February a very hungry heron ate almost all the fish in our pond (about 25).  (Only 4 black ones survive.)  It has been really interesting to see how drastically reducing fish numbers has increased the bio-diversity in the pond.  In the last month we have seen dragon fly larvae, shrimps, leeches and hundreds of tapoles, as well as at least 8 frogs. And were have been excited to have two newts for the first time.   so we have decided not to restock with fish, but to see what else appears of its own accord!

[saddad]

Water boatmen, great diving beetles, pond skaters.... thelist can be almost endless!
 8)

[djbrenton]

One of  my neighbours has suddenly found what he's convinced are small fish!! How in heck do they turn up?

[Old Central]

Hi all,

With the recent high temperatures we have had an explosion in pond skater numbers. The pond now resembles an overcrowded ice rink! Although they don't fall over like I do ;D

OC