Nature on Your Doorstep Community

A place to learn, share and inspire others to create a haven for you and for wildlife.

Sign In or Register to join the conversation

A New Wildlife Pond (Finished...at last)

« 5 6 7 8 9 »
  • Hello Paul, hello all!

    This update is, of course, splendid as ever. I love that the starlings and sparrows have already discovered your pond for their bath. How good that you now have a sparrow-bush of your own.

    For now I've a few questions. Paul, you also want to build a hibernaculum. To me this sounds as if this could be a place for insects to spend the winter. Is this true?

    What did Wendy mean with "Thank you for keeping stum"? Did she mean that we kept silent about FdL? "stum" reminds me of the German word "stumm", which means that a person doesn't say anything.

    In the above post Catlady writes "Until then TTFN". What does TTFN mean?

    The pond is so much work, and now here I am with my questions.

    And now I have to say good bye myself, because I have to get ready for my nex nightshift.

    Yours, Bente

  • Hi Bente

    Keeping stumm does indeed mean keeping quiet about something - it is sort of a slang word obviously stolen from your german language.  I am going to PM you because I used to study german quite some years ago in my youth and it's about time I chatted with you a little more!

    TTFN is short for Ta Ta For Now (Ta Ta meaning 'good bye') so really just saying Auf wiedersehen!)  

    Hope the night shift goes well.

    See my Flickr photos here

    https://www.flickr.com/photos/115745582@N04/

     

  • Hello Christine,

    thank you for the explanation. Regarding "stum" I nearly thought as much, but when there suddenly appears a German word in the middle of an English text, it sometimes takes me by surprise. Please feel free to PM me, I'll be glad to chat with you. Thank you as well for the good wishes for my nightshift. I'll shut down the computer now, and take a little nap before I have to get ready for leave.

    Until then!

    Bente

  • This is such an amazing thread, so interesting & informative. I need to bookmark it for my next pond. I'm hoping for a big improuvement on the last one!! Your narrative & photos are brilliant Paul, are you going to hang a flag from the chimney to celebrate the finishing of the pond??

    I didn't know who FdL was either, all I could think of was IKB!

    Best wishes

    Hazel in Southwest France

  • Hi folks, and once again I say thanks for all of your lovely and entertaining comments.

    Christine: Don’t worry about missing out on the sport of taunting me, I suspect this may stem back through time to some sort of ‘tribal instinct’, and if you were here at the time you may not have been able to stop yourself from joining in with all of the other troublemakers.!! As it is, your name has remained in a stable position on my list and is not up for review at this time.!! Ceilidh doesn’t get out too often and even when she does, she quite often goes back inside after a time. She does try to hunt the birds but with them being used to Harry and Tee Tee in the garden, they’re always one step ahead of her. Tee Tee is a great mouser, but she always (that I’m aware of) takes them back into the front porch of the house where her wee bed is, seemingly unharmed. I’ve lost count of the number of mice I’ve rescued from here over the last few years. She did have a Dunnock in there a few weeks ago but once again it appeared unharmed and flew away as soon as I opened my hands after rescuing it. Harry did catch and kill a Sparrow around five weeks ago though; I saw him rushing into the greenhouse where the Sparrow must have got itself trapped. In Harry’s defence, he was a semi-wild cat for a long time so I think this would make him more inclined to kill a bird for survival reasons, a trait that probably still hasn’t left him even though he is well fed now on a daily basis. I ran down but I was just too late to save it. It is sad, but the cats are only acting through instinct and I’m quite sure that they don’t actually catch as many birds as some folks maybe think that they do. Thanks for the ID on the butterfly, it’s always good to have to start a new folder in my collection of photos.

    Catlady: I had looked up a few ‘FdL’ things as well and there do seem to be a lot of companies out there using these initials, and although I never came across your one, I can understand why it would make you pause to think about It.!! As for photos of me in the water, the night that I extended the beach into the deeper water I was absolutely eaten alive by midges, which in my case cause me to come out in huge red lumps for around an hour before the bites settle down a bit. I looked like someone with some sort of awful disease which would definitely not have made for the best of photos.!!

    Bente: You’re correct in thinking that a Hibernaculum is a place for things to hide away in. I thought that if I got any Amphibians in the pond it may be a good idea to have somewhere close by where they may choose to hibernate through the winter months. I’m quite sure that there will be plenty of creepy crawlies that’ll go inside it as well but this may possibly be an extra incentive for any Amphibians to use the space as well. I’ll try to explain a bit more about it when it comes up in another update.

    Hazel: I’m not sure about a flag from the chimney but there’ll certainly be a glass or two of wine involved once this is all done. When you put the initials IKB at the end there I thought..”Noooo”, but then it came to me, Isambard Kingdom Brunel, even I’ve heard of this chap.

    Once again many thanks for everyone’s lovely comments and input, as is the usual, it is very much appreciated.

    Paul

    My bird photos HERE

  • Update...nooo that was an episode Paul, my hubby wondered if I had left the vicinity I was so quiet!!  

    Looking at your first photo on this page and the last one shows the difference you have made to your pond, and how lovely it looks too.  I bet Mrs P is really happy and will be dangling her toes in the water before long.   Isn't it great to see the birds bathing in the water, you have their approval and that's what matters, but what a good idea to have a triangle just for them.

    It's amazing how many different creatures will be attracted to the water as you will know, so looking forward to many more "updates" from you soon.

    Lot to learn

  • Hi Gaynor, and thank you so much for your very kind comments. It is fantastic to see the birds using the pond so soon and with such enthusiasm, the bird bath area was always in the plans and I also have another area for them at the bottom corner which they seem to like and use regularly. There have been lots of ‘wee beasties’ starting to move in as well, so I’ll have to see if I can get some photos of them to add to future updates. I spent around an hour yesterday, crouched down on the flagstones, just staring into the water. If the neighbours see me at this they’ll likely think that I’ve finally lost the plot.!!

    Paul

    My bird photos HERE

  • Hi folks, I’ll bet you’d all forgotten about this thread, it’s been mid July since I last updated anything here. I thought you might like to know how the pond build went along, so here we are again. We’ve got a fair bit to get through, so depending on how the photo loading goes, we'll see how we go with it. This update won’t actually bring the thread to a conclusion, you’re not going to get off that easily, not yet anyway.!! We’ll start off where the last update ended, the pond plants had been ordered, and they arrived in this large box.

    They were actually very well packed and arrived in excellent condition. I used a company called Waterside Nursery who were very helpful, and they are to be highly recommended in my opinion. A nice lady had answered the telephone and when I told her about the new pond (size, depth, location etc) she went through the basics that I needed to get the pond up and running. Even though she had some of the plants that I had on my list, she almost refused to sell them to me on the basis that they wouldn’t be suitable for my particular needs. This quite impressed me as a lot of companies out there would have sold me anything and everything just to make a sale. Once again, if you’re looking for aquatic plants, you could do far worse than using Waterside Nurseries. I had actually contacted another company before this, four unanswered telephone calls and an email which was never replied to, made me decide to try elsewhere. Anyway, for the ‘planties’ among you, the list of plants that arrived were as follows

    6 x Hornwort

    6 x Spiked Milfoil

    1 x Water lily (James Brydon)

    1 x Water lily (Madame Wilfron Gonnere)

    1 x Loosestrife

    2 x Frogbit

    2 x Water Soldier

    There are two or three other plants in the pond as well, I had gotten them from a local garden centre, but their names elude me at the moment. This next photo shows the new plants lined along the edge of the pond before opening them up in readiness for them taking the plunge.

    A closer photo of the 'James Brydon'...

    And not forgetting the 'Madame Wilfron Gonnere'.

    The plants had been sent overnight and were packed in damp newspaper with wee tags attached to each plant explaining how to put them in the pond. (The wee green knife is mine, you have to buy one yourself, it doesn't come with the plants).!! The plant in the pot is some type of Loosestrife, apparently it's supposed to be good for Damselflies and the like.

    The Hornwort, Spiked Milfoil and Frogbit are unwrapped and good to go. I can't remember if it's the Hornwort or the Spiked Milfoil that has lead substitute weights attached, to take it to the bottom. Whichever one it was, the other one is just spread around in the pond and will find it's own depth, be it on the bottom, or floating near the surface. The Frogbit floats at the surface.

    The plants are scattered around in the pond. The Lilies and Loosestrife are placed on the shelf at the middle left at the rear. When you introduce Water Lilies to a pond, they can't just be plonked in the deep water straight away, they have to be lowered towards the bottom gradually; more about that another time though. The water is still cloudy from the build, but it will clear...after it turns green first.!!

    The next photo shows a newspaper 'The Hinckley Times', which was all crumpled up and used as additional packing in the big box of plants. More like ‘The Wrinkley Times’ actually. I sorted the pages into the correct order and laid the newspaper under a rug in the house to flatten it out again, although when Mrs A noticed the lump in her rug, I had to remove the newspaper to a safer place. I was left with no other option other than to Iron It.!! I’ve not read it yet but it’s in the wee cabinet next to my bed, waiting for a winter’s night to be read on.!!

    I told you that I had a plan for the gaps between the flagstones, this is it. Nothing spectacular or fancy, just a case of cutting some spare bits of turf to the rough shape of the gaps, and stuffing them in there.

    And so on up the rest of the side.

    A sprinkling of compost was brushed into all the gaps and over the top.

    And then a good old 'going over' with the watering can. Remember, this was back at the start of July when we were having a great spell of weather.!!

    Another view from the side.

    Ok, now we come to something else completely. You'll remember my wee cat ,Ceilidh? It is with great sadness that I tell you that we lost her last month. She took ill at the start of September, a liver problem, and after two weeks of ups and downs, we had to make the heartbreaking decision to put her to sleep. She was only nine years old and we miss her terribly, she was such a character. This is one of the last photo's I took of her, back in early July when I was building the pond. My wee pal Ceilidh.

    Moving on, there were still a few birds going about, like this gorgeous female House Sparrow.

    The Coo's were enjoying the lovely summer weather...

    And we had some beautiful sunsets in the evenings, like this one.

    And a few Gulls heading off to roost, against a lovely colourful sky.

    The Corvid's were also still here in some numbers.

    I was going to keep going with this update, but it's taken almost an hour and a half to load the photos so I think I'll leave the next part for a later date. The next part deals with the building of a Hibernaculum, so until then, I hope you've enjoyed.

    Paul

    My bird photos HERE

  • Superb update. What a shame about the puss. Lovely photo. This pond lark is making me think I should have one. Both yourself and Nissanman have made the cogs start to turn!

    Unicum arbustum haud alit duos erithacos

    (One bush does not shelter two Robins)

    Zenodotus (3rd Century B.C.)

     

  • Thanks MC, it was a lot of work, but well worth it. As you'll see in later updates, the pond has settled in nicely, we've had diving beetles, wee corixa type things, lots of different insects, and a large Frog was spotted one day, although it had disappeared by the time the camera was found.!! We also had the first Grey Wagtail that I've ever seen in the garden, once again, no photos though. The Starlings and Sparrows love to bathe and drink in the pond as well.

    Paul

    My bird photos HERE

« 5 6 7 8 9 »