I had a visit on Friday afternoon from a local council environment and nature chappie. Apparently an important population of endangered crested newt has been found in a neighbouring village and he wants to creat a corridor of sunny wildlife ponds every 500 metres or so to help them increase because where they are now requires night patrols to get breeders safely across roads to the pond.
We have a small, boggy paddock with a stream running down one boundary and it's apparently ideal for such a pond. Our riding school neighbours use it in summer for their retired horses and it gets no chemicals of any kind. No fish will be allowed though that hasn't stopped them being imported as eggs on the feet of birds who visit our own pond.
I showed him our pond which is unlined for draining our garden and he got very excited. I know we have frogs, toads and newts but not what kind. He's going to send a team to do a survey of what's in there and another team to help do the annual clearing of galloping iris and bullrush that try and take over and maybe deepen it to keep it pondlike for longer as it can go dry by the end of a hot summer. Doesn't harm the amphibians but we've found cooked small silver fish in bad years. Chappy said nature has a way of balancing out predators. It's already half empty now because we've had no proper rain since mid March but the May bank holidays are coming soon and it's bound to rain then.
