Pond watching
13th June 2023
I arrive this morning with a cool-box full of pond water to add microorganisms to the new ponds in the lower wood. This is standard practice with new ponds, which may need the addition of extra microorganisms just to kick-start the rewilding of the new water body.
I also have a metre length of plastic donated by the contractor working on a neighbours new decking. It is composite (a wood plastic mix) which I want to show to Dan and Jake. I'm hoping we can put a bid in to the Lund Fund to use this material for the piles of a boardwalk at the new ponds. It's not cheap stuff, with a 50m boardwalk likely to cost over £15,000. However, it is very durable when compared to sweet chestnut, which would degrade rapidly in contact with surface water. We may have to use chestnut for the treads if the Lund can't stretch to £15k, but the piles need to be made from rot proof material.
I bump into Kate who is taking 14month old Reina for a walk in her buggy, trying to get her to sleep. How fortunate to be able to grow up in this woodland environment. We speak to each other in hushed tones to avoid disturbing the little one.
“You having a picnic?” Jokes Kate.
“No, unless a liquid lunch counts.” I respond and explain my cunning plan.
At the top of Hemlock Valley I pause to photograph silver-weed, speedwell and heath bedstraw which have appeared during the last week. I also record a snatch of blackcap song.
On arrival at the 'greater water boatman' information sign I stick the printed information sheet back onto the board using double-sided tape. Now the repaired board is as good as new for visitors to learn about this important work. Let's see how long that lasts.
It rained two nights ago, so there is a small amount of water in the pond-cum-puddle just above this dam. Honey bees are active, collecting mud and drinking from it, whilst a small footprint impression with a cm of water in it provides a good place for a fly to exhibit to potential mates. You only need a small amount of water for life to continue.
It is not until I get to the new ponds that the stream has any running water in it and this is only a trickle. However, the ponds look healthy enough. The lowest, sitting in the deep shade of tall trees, has no blanket weed growing in it, whilst the others do. As with the proposed solar panels on my roof, tree shade interupts the power generation of nature's photovoltaic cells.
I add my home pond water from my cool-box and wave goodbye to the micro-organisms in it. They also have a few pond snails for company. When I collected the water a few baby newts tried to hitch a ride, but I sent them packing, not because their mothers might miss them but because the transfer of amphibians can lead to the spread of disease from pond to pond. It's a global biosecurity issue.
My relocation duties complete I decide to sit by the upper pond and see what is happening in pond world. I immediately spot the floating dead body of an adult mayfly. Most likely a female, she must have emerged from the pond within the last few days, mated and laid her eggs back in the water, before calling it a day and donating her spent body to the pond skaters body-fluid-sucking stiletto.
It is not long before my eyes start to pick up the tiniest of movements in the water, which is packed with lesser water boatman. Scores of them are shuttling to the surface to collect bubbles of air under their wing cases before returning to the safety of relative darkness on the pond bed. These little fellows are related to the greater water boatman but are herbivores, sucking sap from water plants. A small black beetle follows suit, whilst at the surface a pair of pond skaters take time off from feeding to indulge in a bit of reproductive foreplay. One stands on its head whilst the other one tries hard to knock it off balance. All good clean fun I'm sure!
Perched on a raft of water-starwort leaves a pair of red damsel-flies are coupled, in the tricky business of egg laying underwater. He grips the back of her head helping her to breach the water surface with her ovipositor. Once she is half submerged she can lay eggs on the underside of the leaves, before he helps to haul her out. Off to one side a blue male is doing the same with his partner. However, in this instance she is green in colour – an example of sexual dimorphism. At least it avoids any embarrassment when speed dating.
Much more spectacular in its flying is the male broad bodied chaser that whizzes around the pond like a teenage ASBO on his trail-bike. Not for him the genteel fluttering of the damsel flies. Then what I take to be a large hornet joins the circus, that is until she adopts a geostationary position hovering above the pond surface. Then 'bam' with a flick of her 'tail' she sprays a mass of eggs into the water, apparently aimed at the underside of a floating log. She is a female broad-bodied chaser, whilst he is pale blue in colour. Another male joins the scene but he is quickly seen off by 'hubby' and she continues distributing eggs in the hope that their offspring will spend the next couple of years eating all-and-sundry in the pond mud, before climbing a nearby pond plant, shedding their skins and then doing their own hornet impersonation, perhaps above the same pond.
The final bit of excitement crowns all that went before. Something small and greeny-brown shoots across my field of view and into the shallows. I know what this is and its what I've been waiting for over the last couple of months. Patiently a remain still and am rewarded with the sight of a small four-legged frog tadpole crawling out of the water. Soon it will loose its tail and hop off to spend the next few years completing its life cycle as an adult frog. It feels like a really big moment and I choke back the tears and the words “One of my babies has left home and gone off into the wild world.” In fact the moment is even more profound, because amphibians have been doing this for hundreds of millions of years since the first one did it, as life left the water and colonised the land.
Beside a pond you can watch eons of evolution in just a few quiet minutes of sitting still. Try it.