Re: New Pond and Bog

The sticklebacks arrived in my pond with the flood waters and lived and bred in there happily for a number of years. I think they all departed with the last floods.

I have seen sticklebacks in ponds the same size as yours (stranded by the floods), they seemed to be doing well. These small ponds flood regularly in the winter so I don’t know if they could survive in them for long periods.

Our local aquatic centre sells them for ponds but that doesn’t necessarily mean they will survive in a small pond.

Everything has been very quiet in the pond over the winter. Ice and snow covered it for some time. Since then the water has been crystal clear and absolutley nothing doing.....until a few days ago when I noticed two Ram's Horn snails combing the shallows. Today I got very excited as I thought I notice a little green on the bottom of the pond. Please excuse the photo....I tried everything to see what was there...binoculars didn't work.....but my camera on full digital zoom and without a polariod filter revealed this. Rigid Hornwort just emerging from the sand and leaves in the bottom of the  shallows  ........WOW!....I'm so proud and can't wait for the next event.

Your pond and bog looks great. We had one for 18 years full of koi and 18 months ago the heron emptied it all bar one 18 inch black and red one. We were so upset, we found him a good home and filled the pond in. Took a lot of doing, it was 12' x 10' and 3'6" deep. We now have a water feature instead, which still attracts frogs but it's just not the same so I wish you well it will give you hours of pleasure

Good for you FP!! Great to see things beginning to awaken! Look forward to hearing more about the progress and seeing piccies!! :-)

MarJus

Look forward to hearing more about the progress and seeing piccies!! :-)

I will need to consider some new equipment and perhaps a digital microscope to get better pictures of the emerging life in the pond.

Today I saw Rams Horn Snails, a shrimp-like creature, a tiny black beetle coming up for air and a Water Boatman in the shallows on the bottom......how good is that!  Green seems to be sprouting in minute ways all over the place. Hard to see exactly what they are yet. I'm waiting eargerly for my first froggy visitors. I need to start doing my homework so I can begin to identify things correctly. That turned a rather flat and depressed (me) morning into a more hopeful one.

Should get my 'good' computer fixed next week [the dreaded blue screen of death :-( ] so expect some picccies in about a week.

Colin

Last year I came across waterproof webcams - at only marginally more than most of the nestbox cameras on the market. Perhaps we can look forward to pictures from a pond cam this summer in addition to all the wonderful nest cam pictures everyone is already posting on the site.

Hi Frog Prince

I love ponds, i can spend hours just looking at it, i have a small one in this garden, no fish this time, i only put it in last year, sadly it was after the frogs had mated, but I did have three frogs and  newts. its great to see who vists the pond dragonfly and all the other bugs.

I did put in ram horns,  trap door snails and swan mussels. i'm hoping to get frogspawn this year, i never had them in my other pond as it was full of koi.

i'm looking forward to seeing how your is doing in the spring, i love the lay out you done, i have no room for a bog garden :-(

keep the photos coming!  :-)

Hi Trochilus

Sounds great, i have seen some they not to cheap.

but I found this one:

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/Underwater-Pond-%26-River-Wildlife-Camera-with-Light_W0QQitemZ330405007016QQcmdZViewItem?rvr_id=&rvr_id=&cguid=2cc8c1e31250a0e203e43c74fc9deb2f

i will have to think about getting one, my hubby will go mad!

Hi Janet

Also worth looking up Closewatchcameras. They do pond cams as well as infrared ones for night time garden viewing for those of us with hedgehogs and badgers on the garden list.

Nice idea ...........but as I have recently had to give up work the budget won't run to that .....but I'm sure one of our more aflluent contributors could have a go :-)  A pond net and a bucket or tray and the macro on my digital camera will have to do. Creepy crawly videos do appeal though.

All looks very impressive Frog prince. Due to a high water table, however, my lawn looks like your bog after a few days rain.  Having had rain for several consecutive days my new flowering cherry tree has armbands on!

Sarah

Those pond cams are £160...!!  Nice idea, but not today I think.

My new pond has just gone through its 1st winter as well.  Only water and weed in it so far.

Also a lesson why you should not use sandstone as an edging stone..  All that wet, then a hard frost..Avalance.! :-(

Bingo! :-)

Saw my first big adult frog swimming in the pond yesterday. by the size of his thumbs he looks like a male but I'm no expert.  Looks like he may be a bit orange :-) but I can't tell if he is one of my last year frogs. No sign of any frog spawn but other mini-beast activity is warming up fast. The birds are enjoying a bath and a drink and probing around the edges for moss, worms and bugs. I don't think much of the underwater plant life survived the winter so I may have to add some more Hornwort soon. The Frogsbit and a Water Soldier look OK.

First Newt Today :-) Too quick to get a picture though but I'll be watching.

If anyone in interested in following the development of my pond I'm now posting photos on my SmugMug site.

You can see them here

http://colinandelaine.smugmug.com/Garden/Pond/10753278_7YMc2#749529140_a7P8w

If you hit the <Slideshow> button top right you can see the lot!

FP

just great to see how ponds evolve over time i have many pictures years gone by

the main problem i have had is some water plants take over destroying other plants in the pond or nearly doing so

frogs  i dont agree that all shown here are pure common frogs but my be crosses with the pond frog and pool frog

any one who has more information on this i would like to here from them

i am in surrey and others intruduce frogs are withing 20ty miles of where i live

the tadpoles can be very big but dont look like common frog tadpoles either

the edible frog is a cross between the pool frog and pond frog and can be more like one or the other

but my frogs breed about the same time as the common frog to make things more confuseing the pictures on frog sites only show a few frogs saying also that they differ too but no pictures of how they do alot more needs to be done in this area the bull frog has been intuduce to and i beleive does interbreed with other frogs

one thing i dont get is green frogs but every othjer colour