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Harry_the_Spider
Full MemberMilky white. Seems to have subsided a bit over the last week or so.
Could be bacterial but it would have to be a heck of a bloom for it to be described as "milky". I'd probably ignore it if nothings died and it's started subsiding.
Finally got a water lily! Our water level varies quite a bit with the rain, and it's previously been drowned and rotted shortly after flowering. This year it's bloomed at a high water level, so should be safe.
Bookmarking thread for future reference - just started digging put for my wildlife pond!
Going to be about 3m x 2.5m x600mm deep. Liner and underlay arriving tomorrow.
The tiger mosquitos which are slowly migrating north are going to love all this habitat being provided. My design feature would be the ease of removal when the mosquitos reach you.
Yes same here, night before last, we were commenting on lack of 'spawn and then it arrived, sorry no pic. Temperature just a tad milder, maybe that is the trigger reason?
I was getting worried my little garden guests where not turning up this year but the ponds now full of spawn I'm sure it's getting later each year. Luckily I cleaned all the dead leaves out last week so the pond is now just for frogs.
Oh we pulled out a magpie from it a few weeks ago no idea why it couldn't get out as it's shallow at 3 ends and gravel.
Roll on the Lilly pads and bats in the summertime
Duplicated
That's a super collective effort lol.
They have taken a beating as a species it's nice to see them doing ok. Hopefully we get the Swifts back this year in numbers in the summer they have been returning next doors soffit for as long as we have been here only 2 pairs last year 😣
We had our frogspawn 3 weeks ago up in frigid North Yorkshire. Not sure if that's early or late, I remember sometimes having a really hard freeze after the spawn but that's not happened this year.
Frogspawn in our pond for the first time since we dug it a couple of years ago. Had a few frogs visiting but this is what we've been waiting for!
Don't know if the pic will work:
Edit: Didn't notice the amount of dead leaves until seeing the photo!
Not in my pond or in fact nowhere near one but I found this little fella todaySome frog spawn arrived last week in cold Cumbria. I put the pond in two years ago and it is the first time we have had some naturally produced. We did put some frog spawn in from a neighbours pond last year.
Just a little bit but I am happy
And there is a frog hanging around
Got no frogspawn here in Essex 😕 none in my mum's many ponds either. Very strange, usually we are drowning in it!
I neglected my pond last year a bit so it's sludgy. Has anybody used a sludge removing product recently with success?
Teeming with tadpoles here. I also split and repotted my pitcher plants which are starting to shoot up again. Two of the three are very prolific and some may be donated to a local charity plant sale. As for sludge removing products, a flowerpot or small bucket works for me. Though I haven’t bothered in a while. The frogs like hibernating in it and the ponds are plenty deep enough.
Unexpected visitors to our small pond this morning. I was able to feed them sunflower hearts (bread is bad). The tadpoles would have had a shock.
Love the ducks and sparrowhawk. We've had a visit from the latter a couple of times but no ducks yet.
Seems like the frosts a couple of weeks back killed the frogspawn which is sad. As was finding that the three blackbird chicks had been gotta by some horrible cat. Having watched the blackbirds working so hard on building the nest and then feeding the chicks it was a bit of a gloomy day in the garden last week 😕
We've already had a baby robin (the STW staple of fledglings), sadly a magpie got into one hedge and took the blackbird's eggs, that caused a huge noise and commotion, however the blackbirds are rebuilding.
Good to see other birds collecting moss from the north facing flower borders. Spring is wonderful.
Our local blackbird is mostly decimating our newt population.
It's not nice to watch!
Unfortunately the ducks that visited a few months ago, not only ate all the frogspawn, but they gobbled up all the other wildlife.
We've only had one waterboatman and one pond skater, in previous years there were hundreds of waterboatmen and a few black water beetles and lots of other wriggly creatures. It's been a disappointment. Although there was a common damsel fly on the tiny wild meadow, which I'm pretty sure evolved from the pond.
Still plenty of baby frogs around from last year. I'm sure nature will return.
One year we had a grey wagtail which ate all the newtlings and has not been seen since.
Nature is cruel.
Hurrah, the first frogspawn of the season. Only a tiny blob. Hoping some more will appear in the next few days. Last year the Mallards ate the lot. I'm thinking of a net or cover.
im hoping for a return of some friendly toads this year, last summer we had one come in the porch so I know they are about. We've also made a very small pond in our rough area. I say pond but it's tiny but big enough for wildlife to become squatters so we'll see if a frog might make it up from a nearby old quarry
Its exciting stuff
I was a little concerned to fish out half a dozen dead frogs recently - I’ve only ever seen the odd one or two per year before - but the ponds are absolutely churning in this recent warmth. At least 20 heads sticking up, maybe more, and then a mad panic when they see me…gobs of frogspawn too.
Our garden pond is now officially a duck pond! We've seen ducks there occasionally in the past, but it's only small and we didn't think they were actually settled there. Today there's a fat mallard on 3(?) eggs partially hidden in vegetation round the back.
Maybe there won't be so many tadpoles this summer then!
Mine, during and after some extensive frost damage repairs in the brickwork.
Had a couple of frogs last year, but no sign this year so far.
I've been neglecting mine for a couple of years due to the arrival of a baby wot don't sleep... Starting to try and get back on top of it. Sadly fish all lost to a heron but the good thing is I now have an abundance of insects etc that were lacking before.
Very happy to see this today
Our first red damselfly. She’s laying eggs. I’ve been chasing the ducks off as much as possible, otherwise they gobble up all pond life.
My pond is about 4" down on water level - praying for a deluge this weekend!! 🌧️🌧️🌧️🌧️
We've had a lot of red damselflies which I don't really remember so much from before, maybe it's a good year for them.
Had to fill my pond up with a hose a couple of weeks ago (after I'd been away for a while), it was in dire straits and a few marginal plants have probably died. Plenty of other life and the tadpoles are already getting legs.
Yes the pond is very low, probably by 14 cm.
Our 2 water butts ran out the other night. Only had half an hours worth of rain since the 19th of April.
Expecting rain this weekend.
I don't think the occupant was entirely happy so transferred to an easier to exit wet place. Also the cat was not impressed with the invasion into her waterbowl!