Provide and They Will Come #1: January 2023
During 2021, I took it in to my head to install a small pond on our plot on Field One, following the lead of our lottie neighbour who had done a similar thing the year before. We’d noticed a lot more frogs hopping around our patch once he’d done this, so we thought we would give them an option of a new home.
Little did we know what would happen once we’d completed our work!
It’s not a huge pond, but it is over 60cm (two feet) deep so it doesn’t freeze through and creatures can go to the bottom to over-winter without getting frozen.
It’s lined with a butyl liner (We weren’t brave enough do it with clay etc.) and we’ve repurposed some remnant Cotswold stone from a friend’s old dry-stone wall. We’ve kept everything as natural as we can so only planted native plants around the edges and the water-lily is a small native one too.
So, what difference has our pond made?
During the day we have a massive amount of different birds (also attracted by our feeding station) who drink and bathe, and insects; we’ve spotted different bees, wasps and hoverflies as well as dragonflies and various creepy crawlies in and around the pond that we don’t recognise!
We decided to install a motion-triggered wildlife camera and see who visits during dusk, night and dawn.
I will upload more links and some photos in slower time, but for now here are just some of our highlights…
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Fox
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Owl (a Tawny who has appeared during spring and summer in 2021 and 2022) We do have lots of Tinker (as it has become known) so this one is for starters!
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Polecat… This really took us by surprise! It may also be why the camera has been triggered less by rats more recently.
We hope you enjoy this little update!