Garden Ponds are Great!

One of the best ways to bring wildlife into your garden is by having a pond. A well designed pond is some where wild creatures can drink, bathe, forage, hide or reproduce: if your garden were a village the pond would be the shop, public house and village hall all in one!

Cheshire is a county blessed with many ponds, making us a haven for many aquatic species, from great crested newts to great crested grebes. But we are loosing many farm ponds, as they silt up, become polluted or are filled in. However many of the creatures that live in these farm ponds are equally at home in our garden ponds.

Some creatures, such as pond snails, spend their whole life underwater; but many more are aquatic for only part of their lifecycle. Most people know that frogs, toads and newts need water to spawn in, although the adults spend most of their lives on land. However there are many more animals that breed in ponds. We think of dragonflies as magnificent flying creatures, but the familiar flying adults live for only a few weeks. The larva of the dragonfly, called a nymph, lives underwater for up to three years. The dragonfly nymph is one of the most ferocious aquatic predators, seizing tadpoles and even small fish in its long curved jaws. The larvae of water beetles are also fierce underwater predators. The adult beetles spend most of their life in ponds, but they are capable of leaving the water and surprisingly enough are strong fliers, although rarely seen as they fly at night. In this way they discover and colonise new ponds.

Ponds are also popular with many birds and mammals as a place to drink. Many birds will also appreciate shallow water as a place to bathe. Sometimes birds can find food at a pond. You may think immediately of herons waiting for a chance to snatch ornamental fish, but even blackbirds have been seen taking tadpoles swarming in the shallows.

The many flying insects, such as mosquitoes, which bred in ponds make them ideal foraging sites for bats. Daubenton’s bat specialises in hunting over water, swooping low over rivers and lakes to catch newly emerged flies. The pipestrelle bat is our smallest bat, and the one most commonly seen in gardens. Each pipestrelle can take up to 3,000 midges, gnats and mosquitoes during a nights foraging.

A wildlife pond can be a thing of beauty to human visitors. As well as attracting birds and insects it can be home to some of our native pond plants. What can compare with the vivid glowing yellow of marsh marigolds in the spring, the delicate flowers of water forget-me-not, or the stately spires of purple loosestrife in late summer.