Tag Archive | Aeshna cyanea

Bringing our wildlife pond back to life

One of the first things we will do when / if we make another garden is put a wildlife pond in. Until we had our pond, we hadn’t realised how much it brings to a garden: not only do you get movement and light with the reflection of the skies (and cloudscapes), but it brings in a whole host of wildlife. Hedgehogs drink from it, birds bathe in it, frogs and newts breed in it, dragonflies and damselflies flit over it, lay their eggs and leave them to grow into the most Geiger-esque larvae (also called a nymph, though anything less nymph-like it’s hard to imagine). We used to spend hours pond watching.

Our pond 10 years ago, 1 June 2006.

Our pond ten years ago, 1 June 2006.

Gradually, over the years, the pond silted up. We weren’t the best at maintaining it, and an umbrella plant (Darmera peltata) I had put in the bog area to serve as a mini-gunnera gradually took over, shading the water. For the last three or four years we have had frogspawn but never tadpoles: something wasn’t working right in the pond. This summer it sprung a leak deep down and most of the water drained out.

Over the weekend at the beginning of the month we decided to take action. On the Saturday we undertook the VERY smelly job of emptying the last of the sludge out of the pond. We chucked it on to the surrounding flowerbeds to act as an organic mulch (and already as I write, the geraniums are forcing their way up through it). That we disturbed just one frog (Rana temporaria) and one immature common newt (Lissotriton vulgaris) was a sign of how poor a habitat it had become.

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I’m glad this blog doesn’t have smell-o-vision. The silt was very, very stinky.

Then we covered the old liner with some very thick dust sheets in case something had come through the old one to make it leak, and put a new liner over it. The pond took several hours to fill.

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Partially full, several hours later …

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As the pond was filling we were buzzed by a dragonfly – a female southern hawker (Aeshna cyanea). I don’t know how it detected the water, but it was straight on the case!

On the Sunday we edged part of the pond with stones and made a pebble beach, added three bags of pond soil, and replanted / threw in the few pond plants we’d salvaged from the previous incarnation, such as water forget-me-nots (Myosotis scorpioides) and Lesser spearwort (Ranunculus flammula), plus the ever-present duckweed.img_7092

Sludgey silt in the foreground.

Sludgey silt in the foreground. Plank to aid any beasties that might fall in.

Then we left it for a week, as work intervened. During that time the soil settled and the water cleared, frogs found the pond, and we saw our first greater water boatman (Notonectidae or Pleidae) and our first whirligig beetle (Gyrinidae), plus southern hawkers laying eggs on the few plants. Sadly the mosquitoes have also found the pond … Yesterday I bought some more plants, and as autumn is coming, the pond is complete for now.

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Turves laid to cover the liner.

Turves laid to cover the liner and create another easy access area for critters.

New plants added: Brooklime (Veronica beccabunga), bogbean (Menyanthes trifoliata) and Iris louisiana 'Her Highness'.

New plants added: brooklime (Veronica beccabunga), bogbean (Menyanthes trifoliata) and Iris louisiana ‘Her Highness’. I try to stick to British natives but couldn’t resist the iris.

It’s getting towards the end of the growing season so nothing will really happen until next spring – hopefully then we’ll have frogspawn that actually turns into tadpoles!

Update Sunday 18 September; We had a day out at the Harold Hillier Gardens and Arboretum near Romsey in Hampshire, and on the way back stopped at a specialist aquatic garden centre. Couldn’t resist the frogbit (Hydrocharis morsus-ranae), a yellow water lily (Nuphar lutea), and a water hawthorn / water hyacinth (Aponogeton distachyos: okay, I know this last one’s not a British native, but it’s so pretty …). The garden centre sold great ramshorn snails (Planorbarius corneus) at five for £2.50, but I was too mean to fork that out for them. So I was happy to see there were some snail eggs on one of the leaves of the Nuphar lutea plant we bought …

Mr Frog happily ensconced in the rejuvenated pond.

Mr Frog happily ensconced in the rejuvenated pond.

Sunday stroll: south-western Wiltshire

Chap and I did a short (c. 2 mile) circuit around our village yesterday lunchtime. We went through the village allotments, and saw a clouded yellow butterfly (Colias croceus) in the wildflower/conservation area there, the first we have seen this year, as well as a beautiful bright green beetle on some mint (the imaginatively named mint leaf beetle).

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Mint leaf beetle, Chrysolina herbacea.

We startled a small flock of starlings out of a dense thicket of blackberries in the conservation area. I assume they were feeding there as 1 pm seems a bit early to roost!

Out of the village there is the Ox Drove, an old drovers’ road that is a haven for butterflies and other insects. (It was here, many years ago, we saw our first and so-far only glow worm (Lampyris noctiluca) on a summer’s evening).

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The Ox Drove.

Here there were butterflies aplenty: we saw a brimstone, plenty of small whites, small tortoiseshells, speckled woods, peacocksred admirals and some rather tatty holly blues.

Speckled wood butterfly (Pararge aegeria).

Speckled wood butterfly (Pararge aegeria).

Holly blue butterfly

Holly blue butterfly (Celastrina argiolus).

We also saw a southern hawker dragonfly (Aeshna cyanea) to which I was able to get very close to photograph. I love their folk name of ‘Devil’s knitting needles’, even though there is nothing devilish about them (their larvae however are another matter when it comes to the stuff of nightmares …).

Southern hawker dragonfly (Aeshna cyanea).

Southern hawker dragonfly (Aeshna cyanea).

The berries and fruits are splendid this year. The elderberries are positively dripping off the trees, the haws are colouring up, wayfarers and guelder roses have their bright red berries, there are loads of blackberries and best of all a pretty good sloe crop—not the best there’s ever been, but enough to pick a load for sloe gin and sloe vodka without damaging the birds’ winter larder.

Elderberries (Sambucus nigra).

Elderberries (Sambucus nigra).

Haws ripening (Crataegus monogyna).

Haws ripening on a hawthorn bush (Crataegus monogyna).

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Wayfarer berries (Viburnum lantana).

Sloes (Prunus spinisa).

Sloes (Prunus spinosa).

We walked through lovely countryside of low rolling chalk downland. Our part of south-western Wiltshire is given mostly to arable farming, often in very large fields (often made out of several smaller ones by ripping out the ancient hedgerows, sadly). Most of the crops have been harvested, but nearer to home there were still a couple of fields of wheat, barley and flax waiting to be brought in.

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Chap doing his Maximus Decimus Meridius impression in a barley field.

Chap doing his Maximus Decimus Meridius impression in a barley field on the way home.