Pond Progress in the Hot Weather

During the past few weeks we have made some progress on the landscaping around the pond during exceptionally hot weather. My parents came up for a weekend and helped get on top of the problem weeds around the top end of the pond, which was much appreciated. We found the weather to be too hot for much hard manual labour, so progress on the landscaping has been slower than we expected. But we are slowly getting the ground levelled along the side of the pond, and the gravel path laid. We are re-using the gravel which was originally covering the whole area of the pond, but it requires sifting out all the soil and washing before it can go down on the new path. We are collecting all the muddy water from this operation and using it to water the garden, so it is not wasted.

The bog garden is looking well established now, and we have really enjoyed the flowering plants. Most of the plants appear to be happy in their new location, and the hundreds of tiny frogs which have emerged from the pond are certainly happy in the damp shade around the plants. A lot of water has evaporated in the hot weather and we are hoping for some rain soon. I have had to put some tap water in the pond to keep the level from dropping too far, but I want to keep this to a minimum because the mineral content can cause the blanket weed and other algae to take over the pond.

Caroline has created the pebble beach area in the shallow bay of the pond, to blend into the gravel path. This is to provide easy access to the pond for small mammals and birds (as well as us!). She has also positioned various larger rocks in the water.

The results at the end of another weekend

Completed Bog Garden

The bog garden and marginal plants garden beds are now finished, and mostly planted up. We have also moved the marsh marigold from the small water feature pond to the new large pond, as it was getting a bit big for the old location. We decided to put the marsh marigold directly into the main pond, and just pack some aquatic compost around the roots.

Now we have started work on the landscaping around the pond. You can see the start of the gravel path which we are putting on top of the rubble. We are putting down weed surpressing fabric to try and keep the weeds at bay.

Bog Garden Mark II

We were alarmed to see that several of our new bog plants were looked decidedly unwell in the new bog garden. Consulting our various books we discovered that what the garden centres call 'bog plants' generally mean plants which like damp conditions, but not water logged. It never occurred to us that our bog garden should not be boggy! What we have created is a marginals garden, for plants which like their roots permanently in water.

So we decided to add a bog garden which will be damp but not wet, to accomodate our 'bog' plants. This bed is lined with plastic bags, but we have stuck the garden fork through them to provide drainage for any excess water that is not held in the soil. Now that the pond is full I have been able to build up the sides at a couple of low points so that they are perfectly level. The pond should now overflow into the bog garden bed when we have prolonged wet weather, keeping all the plants happy.


Caroline filling the bog garden with soil.

Pond Life Moves In

Today we bought a few aquatic plants for the pond, including some submerged oxgenators to help keep the water clear. Before we had time to put them in their final positions a pair of mating damsel flies turned up and started laying eggs on them! We have also seen a short fat bodied dragonfly, which we think is a type of chaser. It has been a pleasant surprise just how quickly the pond life is turning up, as we have never seem these insects in the garden before.


I managed to photograph the damsel flies when then landed on some grass at the side of the pond.

Planting the Pond

We have finished filling the pond now. Most of the water came from our rain water butts in the garden. We have several of these collecting water from the gutters. I managed to syphon the water from them using the garden hose. After I emptied 4 of them, we had a very wet day, and they all completely filled again. So I emptied them all again, and only had to top up the pond with a small amount of tap water.

Now we have created a bog garden which is part of the pond water table, so it should always be wet. The soil is held in place with a roll of pond underlay felt containing gravel. So the water can seap through, but the soil does not contaminate the pond water.


Caroline getting her hands dirty

No Chicks

Sadly we have to conclude that the eggs in our bird box were not going to hatch. It is over a month since they were laid, and there is no sign of hatching. By this stage we should have a box full of chicks. We have seen almost no sign of a second parent in the video we have recorded from the bird box camera, and this may have been part of the reason that the nest has failed. The single parent has to leave the box regularly to feed, and this might have meant the eggs got too cold? We can only hope for a more successful nest next year.

Grass Snake

Caroline spotted the cat cautiously playing with something in the garden yesterday, and when she went to investigate she found a grass snake. It looks like our wildlife friendly gardening policy is really paying off! She grabbed the camera and took some pictures. It looks like the snake is about 50cm long at most, so probably a young one. You can see the size compared to the walnut shell in the picture.

An Egg a Day

We have seen the arrival of one egg per day recently, up to the total of 9 on 1st May. That looks like to final total as no more have appeared since then.


Nine Eggs in Total

Eggs in the Nest

Our Great Tit has laid some eggs today. I've been recording 30 minute videos periodically to hopefully catch all the action, but it looks like these eggs were laid after my last clip today, but before I got home. Shortly after I saw this image on the camera the proud mother came back to settle down for the night, so I caught that on video at least.

Proud Mother

Nestbox Success

We got back from our holiday to find that a Great Tit has started to build a nest in our nestbox with the camera fitted. I weas very excited to see her sleeping in there last night. I checked again this morning and she had gone out, revealing that there are no eggs in the nest yet. I've set up the computer to record some video at various times during the day in the hope of catching the action on video.


Nesting Great Tit

Siskin Sighting

We spotted a new species for our garden this week, when a pair of Siskins came to eat at our Nyjer feeder. The pair of Goldfinches attracted to this feeder are turning up every day too.

Pond Liner Laid

Laid the pond liner in a hurry before going away, so that it can start filling up with rain water. I'll have to finish off the landscaping after our holiday, but at least the pond water can start developing into a habitat.


I had a little help from the cat!

Blackbird Nesting

Our resident Blackbirds are nesting in the hedge again this year. This is a relief because I cut the hedge back during the Winter, and thought I may have openned it up a bit much for them. (This prevented them from nesting a couple of years back). In fact the nest is more visible this year, which allowed me to get a clear view of the mother sat on it.


Blackbird on her nest

Frogspawn Success

After the recent operation to drain the pond to prevent more frogs dying in the foul water, I deliberately put some rain water from a water butt into the pond just in case any more frogs turned up to spawn in the usual place. This turned out to have been a good move, because yesterday the pond contained several balls of frogspawn. Meanwhile none of the pairs of frogs I rescued and relocated to the other pond have spawned there. Most of them appear to have moved on from that pond, and I suspect they returned to this pond to spawn when we had a lot of rain the other day. It looks like the instinct to return to the same spawning location year after year drives them even after they have paired up in a pond. They have spent over a week in pairs since I relocated them, but appear to have made the trip back up the garden to the original pond before spawning.

Frog and Frogspawn

Frog Tragedy in the Old Pond

To my horror I discovered last night that our the old pond had turned into a deathtrap for frogs. It appears that a lot of leaves sunk into the pond over the Autumn and Winter, making the water foul. I went to check for frogspawn and noticed a dead frog. Disturbing the water revealed that the whole pond was foul, and many more dead frogs were found while trying to clean out the dead leaves hiding below the water surface. Some of these were clearly only recently deceased. One was full of spawn. I think they had suffocated due to lack of oxygen in the water. With more frogs turning up for the spawning season, I had to take drastic action and decided to empty the pond. In total I found about 15 dead frogs, and rescued 5 mating pairs who thankfully appeared healthy. I relocated the healthy pairs to the smaller water feature pond in another part of the garden. The frogs have not adopted this newer pond, presumably because they return to the pond of their birth to spawn. I decided to drain the old pond to prevent any more frogs drowning in it. Hopefully now the newer pond is a hotbed of mating action they will spawn there rather than heading back up the garden to the original one again.



This is the old pond, from which I cleaned out as much muck as possible and then added some fresh water from the rainwater butts in the garden in case more frogs return to spawn. You can see the frog escape ramp I have fitted so that they can get out again.

The frogs seem happy enough in their new temporary home. I hope they will relocate back to the new pond once it is completed and fit to inhabit. I will probably move some frog spawn to the new pond when it is ready as the pond that these frogs are in at the moment is too small for them, and I want the offsping to return to the new pond to spawn in future years.

Work Starts on Wildlife Pond

Two productive days work in the garden with much help from my father-in-law has seen the basic shape of the long planned pond dug out. We have an old pond which was there when we moved into the house, but it fails in all the important criteria for a wildlife pond. A well designed pond for wildlife should feature the following:
- Shallow sides to allow easy access to wildlife
- Shallow water zones (<50cm depth)
- Deep water zone (>50cm depth, preferably 1 metre deep)
- A large enough overall volume to cope with Summer temperatures

Our old pond has vertical sides and a uniform depth of about 50cm. Too deep for frogspawn and not deep enough to stop the water getting too hot in Summer. The new pond is much larger and will have the required shallow and deep zones. Due to the gradual slope across the garden, we had to build up the down slope edge of the pond to make the edges level all round. This has the major advantages that we do not have to dig as deep a hole to get the desired 1 metre depth, and we can use all the spoil to build up the ground around the lower end of the pond. You can see the basic shape in the picture below. The old pond is located in the corner of the garden at the back of this picture. Eventually I hope to remodel the original pond and turn it into a header pond for a waterfall, flowing into the new pond.



Our garden is on the site of an old builders yard, and we were still digging through rubble at the bottom of the pond. Eventually we will use all the rubble we have dug out to raise the surrounding area back up to the new raised edge of the pond, resulting in a pond that is set into a level garden.

First Recorded Nestbox Visitor

This weekend I was cleaning the nestbox containing the camera which I built last year, but which did not get used by any birds. The camera compartment built into the lid of the nestbox had become home to a nesting colony of spiders, whose nest webs were blocking the light from the LEDs. After cleaning it up enough to get the camera working, I was trying to determine why I could only get a black and white picture when this Great Tit appeared on the camera! After picking off all the spiders crawling around in the main nestbox compartment, it fluffed itself up and tucked it's head under it's wing and settled down for the night. Hopefully this is a sign that the box will be used for nesting this Spring.


First recorded nestbox visitor

Great Tit curled up for the night

New Birds Brighten Winter Gloom

After a brief covering of snow over Christmas, the garden returned to it's usual damp and gloomy Winter appearance. I managed to get out on a couple of days over the holiday period and do some much needed hedge trimming. The pyracantha was getting out of control but I had left it until now because the new 5 ft long spikes which had grown out of the top of the hedge were covered in berries, which the birds eat. Now all the berries have gone, so it got a haircut.

New Years day brought a very pleasant surprise. Not one, but two species of birds which we have not previously recorded in our weekly bird survey were spotted in the garden. A female blackcap was seen feeding on a fat ball, and then a crow came and perched in the walnut tree. We also spotted every other species we have previously recorded in the garden apart from the gold finch, jay, song thrush and wren! A bumper bird day and a great start to the year.

I cleaned and repaired the main seed feeder over the holiday, cleaned up the window feeder and refilled it with black sunflower seeds. I also made some more fat cakes (consisting of ground up peanuts in vegtable fat) to put in the small bird feeding cage. This cage prevents the larger birds (gangs of starlings mainly) from eating the lot in a day, ensuring there is a reliable supply of high energy food for the smaller birds though the Winter. I was given a nyger seed feeder for Chrismas too, but I have to sort out a suitable site for that as it is not squirrel proof, and they chew their way through anything they can despite the best efforts of our cat to eat them!