Today, I caught a #Dragonfly laying eggs in our #Garden at the #Pond. They’re regular guests. But I also caught a fire #Salamander wondering around. This is a rather rare thing.
[1/n - randomly talking about ponds and filters]
I'm in the process of clearing the #Pond in the #Garden.
(Btw, I'm always in the process of clearing the pond in the garden, it's a long lasting fight against algae and smelling deposits.)
I refuse to buy a filtering system.
Why?
Did you recently look inside a filtering system that costs up to 200€?
It's just a big plastic box with layers of sponges and spaces for muddy smelly stuff to deposit.
Don't.
Just... don't put plastic flowers in your #pond.
I put them in the pond, because I thought they made for a nice support for insects while I was waiting for the actual plants to grow.
But the #bees went crazy.
At first I thought they were looking for water, but yesterday there were around 50? 100? Bees all occupied with the fake flowers and completely ignoring the real ones and the small bowl with the water and pebbles I made for them.
A pair of goldfinches just appeared. One of them clung to a marsh marigold stem to drink from the pond, then they were off. They are always in a hurry.
A long time ago I made a little pond in our back yard. Ostensibly for the indoor fish (Koi, Comets) to spend Summer outside, but then the scope (and pond) got bigger. Waterfall, rocks for frogs to sunbathe, and deep sections so fish could survive Winter. May 19, 2004 I got the idea to add local fauna to the pond in the form of a couple scoops of plants and bugs from a nearby vernal pool (i.e. roadside ditch). Enjoying water bugs and tadpoles noodling around I spotted a small clump of sticks ... moving.
Posted about it on my blog and a reader ID’d it as a Caddisfly Larva.
Flash forward to yesterday, checking out the frogs in our messy little pond, when a bundle of sticks walked by underwater.