Category: Pond

Purple Loosestrife

purple loosestrifeThe purple loosestrife is now at its best at the RSPB Old Moor reserve.

Two photographers in search of dragonflies apologise for trawling across my field of view, requesting that I don’t include them in the picture.

A shame, they would have added some scale. The loosestrife is shoulder high.

jointed rushJointed Rush

I think of rushes as being like the hard rush and soft rush; spiky and cylindrical, like a clump of green porcupine quills, but this is a rush too; jointed rush, Juncus articulatus, gets its name because the hollow stem is divided by internal ‘joints’.

It has clusters of star-shaped brown flowers which develop into egg-shaped fruits.

 

seedheadYellow Rattle

This dry seedhead was growing on a grassy path edge. It reminds me of bluebell but we’re not in woodland – or old hedgerows – here and when I check it out in the book I’m able to confirm that it’s yellow rattle, Rhinanthus minor, which is semi-parasitic on the roots of grasses.

It is a  member of the figwort family, Scrophulariaceae.

Each rounded capsule has a short beak at its tip. As it rattles in a breeze it distributes its winged seeds.

Bands of Blue and Green

pondI felt that I was getting a bit fussy as I painted the loosestrife so I went for a simpler approach with this nearby pond. With the quickest of pencil outlines I went straight on to the rapidly changing sky and its matching reflection, followed by bands of the lightest greens in each area to indicate distant trees, meadow, reedbed and reedbed reflections, plus the nearest willows.

With every bit of paper assigned a tone I could them add mid-tones of foliage and finally the darkest patches, adding a few of the brown branches of the willows.

Blue Damselflies

damselfliesdamselflies2.30 p.m.; Common blue damselflies are mating down by the pond, the blue male clasping the olive female.

She rests on the water surface as she carefully lays an egg on a submerged leaf of pondweed then the pair move on to lay the next.

newt and damselflyThere are smooth newts lurking below. One grabs a female and swallows her head end first, the two wings protruding from its mouth.

blue damselflyI watch for a few minutes. The males zip around like little blue neon tubes, chasing each other and resting in the sun together on the leaves of plants around the pond.

smooth newt

damselfliesThe pairs flying in tandem continue to lay, often just inches from a waiting newt below.

Pond-dipping the Movie

smooth newt
This smooth newt is a male; note the banner-like tail.

WE CAUGHT smooth newts, freshwater leeches and pond snails in one of the ponds at Hassacarr nature reserve, Dunnington Common, near York on this morning’s Wakefield Naturalists Society field meeting. This is only the second occasion on which I’ve tried out the possibilities of underwater movies using my Olympus μ Tough so using the iMovie app I’ve put together a few clips in this YouTube video.

Sketching the newt as it swam around the tank gives some impression of its movements but you can’t improve on the video clip in the way it shows the looping movement of the leech.

Tubular Water Dropwort

Seed-heads of tubular water-dropwort.
Seed-heads of tubular water-dropwort.

Tubular water-dropwortTubular Water-dropwort, Oenanthe fistulosa, grows around the edges of the largest pond. It one of the rarer species to be found on the reserve, declining as its wetland habitats disappear.

Around York, a city long famous for its flooding, wetlands is sometimes seen as prime real estate. Earlier this year one developer was frustrated that his plan to build an out of town department store was held up for several months because the resident population of great crested newts had to be relocated.

We found no great crested today at Dunnington but they are often found on pond-dipping days on the reserve.

First Clump

spawning in a previous yearIT MIGHT BE about a month late thanks to the cold, sometimes snowy weather but at last there’s a clump of frogspawn in the pond with at least 14 frogs, most of them gathered around the clump which is on the sunnier, shallower side of the pond.

Frogs

frogsfrogsTHE WARMER WEATHER over the weekend has at last encouraged the frogs to return to the pond. There are at least nine, but probably more, of them lined up around the edges. These will be males waiting for the females to arrive.

mugs
Odd sketches made through the day.

 

 

 

Published
Categorized as Pond Tagged

Rye Loaf

rye loaffrogfebfrogAT LAST the frogs are back, well two of them, but when I spot them this afternoon they’re actually making their way out of the pond. It’s warmer today but it’s likely that it’s going to turn cold again so perhaps it is as well that no spawn has appeared as it could still at this late stage run the risk of getting frosted.

pied wagtailTwo pied wagtails flitted about on the terra cotta tiles of the house roof opposite in this morning’s sun, which must have been enticing overwintering insects to emerge from the nooks and crannies. The wagtails briefly mate, or attempt to mate.

pied wagtailToday’s loaf is my attempt at at Paul Hollywood’s ale and rye bread. It proves quite a workout as the dough, to which you add a couple of teaspoons of black treacle, proved to be stubbornly sticky. Perhaps the froth on pale ale caused me to underestimate how much liquid I was adding.

But it’s got lots of character and flavour and it looks more or less like the one in the book.

Chickweed

chickweedCHICKWEED is bursting into life on flowerbeds, covering entire beds where it gets the chance. wagroofIt’s an annual but it has the ability to overwinter and get ahead of the competition as spring arrives.

A wagtail trots about on a house roof in the morning sun.mallards
In contrast to this waterside bird heading for the houses, a regular garden bird, a male blackbirdblackbird, is down on the sandy bank by the river near a pair of mallards that are dabbling nearby.

frogspawn

Still no sign of frogs in our pond but that’s hardly surprising as despite the sun it’s still too cold. A neighbour across the road has a tiny pond that always attracts too many frogs and we transfer the spawn to my pond but the clump that had appeared there before the snow has now turned white, killed off by the heavy frosts.

frogThis weekend will be the test as at last the warm air will be able to move in from the south-west. I’m anxious to see the frogs return.

 

Newts by Torchlight

rocks by the pondTHERE’S ICE on the pond this morning which has largely melted away by lunch time. At sunset Barbara thinks that she’s spotted our first frog of the year. I focus the binoculars on it but can’t make up my mind whether it’s a frog or a dead leaf that has been blown into the pond.

newt

When I go out to take a closer look it has disappeared. If it was a frog it could soon hide itself amongst the luxuriant pondweed but I’m pleased to see two or three smooth newts.

newtThe pond has never looked better. We replaced the liner last year and I added plenty of oxygenating pondweed which has successfully established itself in the deepest section. It’s hard to believe that a year ago this was nothing more than a hole in the ground.

frogAll we need now is those refugee frogs from next door to find their way here.

I go out later with a torch which isn’t powerful enough to enable me to see deep into the pond but I do spot a single newt in the shallow section.

Published
Categorized as Pond Tagged

Rodents

rat hillsTWO WEEKS ago one or two small mounds of earth appeared near the bird table. I tried to persuade myself that they might be molehills but I realised that it was more likely that they were the work of brown rats attracted to the quantities of sunflower hearts spilt by the birds that use the feeders.

We’ve stopped feeding which is a shame as it’s been such a pleasure to see the regular goldfinches, greenfinches, blue tits, great tits, house sparrows and siskins, up to 20 of the latter at a time.

rat burrow, compost binAm I making a mountain of a problem out of molehill? A hole has also appeared beneath the compost bin and that must be the work of a rodent. Our neighbours report that the rats have actually nibbled holes to get into their compost bins. They’ve put a couple of baiting boxes down.

I’m going to move our compost bin to a more open position. Hope they’ll get the message and move on.

Lost Pond

frogMore bad wildlife gardening news; our neighbours have filled in the pond  in the corner by the hedge as their garden has to accomodate a growing number of young children. When our previous neighbours originally put in this pond almost 30 years ago I was convinced that this was too shady a site for a healthy pond. I was wrong because the pond was always more popular with the frogs than ours was, despite all my efforts to create the perfect habitat.

I’m really hoping that all the local frogs weren’t hibernating in the pond when it was removed. It’s the first day of spring today and I’m hoping that any returning frogs will hop along to my pond when they find their favourite spot has been destroyed.

chair

 

Deep in the Pond

Identifying a water beetle; this one didn’t have an English name.

I’VE HAD my Olympus Tough for a few years and it’s proved as reliable as the name suggests so on a Wakefield Naturalists’ field meeting today, when we were looking at leeches and efts (young newts) in a pond at Potteric Carr, I decided to be brave and reach down into the water to see how it would turn out.

Eft; a young newt

Hidden Depths

Leech, this one was about six inches long at full stretch!

My wildlife photographer friend John Gardner suggested using a flash. I normally prefer natural light but, in the murky depths below the pondweeds, the flash works well.

Leaning out and reaching into the water with one hand I found it difficult to avoid camera shake but at least I know that in principle the camera works underwater. Perhaps a rockpool would make a better subject.