Pond Life

Hello, dear reader and welcome to another sunny day in the Yorkshire Wolds. I hope all is well in your world. I think at the moment our cup is half full, although dealing with our garden wildlife has been a little trying of late. 

 We have quite a large pond in our garden that has been covered up during the winter to deter the local heron from eating all our goldfish. But… with the springing of the Spring, the pond plants are all starting to grow again and we have had to remove the frames from the pond to allow the plants room to grow upwards and allow the amorous frogs in, to do what frogs do at this time of year.

All well and good and the heron has not been seen pondside for over a month, so we thought he must have found a steady food supply. But, no. The minute the pond was uncovered, the wretched bird appeared, crouching at the side of the pond, waiting to pounce on our unsuspecting fish. And to add insult to injury, he arrives at first light, so either Spouse or I, (depending on who feels the most energetic at that time of day), has to run outside shouting and waving our arms about to make him fly off. 

And now we have the mallard ducks visiting. They think our pond is their local lido. During the winter and early spring months they were very happy in a pond at the end of the village, a natural pond in a hollow in a field, created by the winter rainfall. Happy ducks, happy me. But … come the springtime, the rains ease off, the pond reduces greatly in size and then the young calves are put to graze in the field. So, we  now host  the ducks. They ravage the pond plants and garden with great gusto and we grind our teeth, as we watch them and perform many a rain dance, (under cover of darkness, out of sight of the neighbours), in the hope that the village pond will rejuvenate and rid us of our unwelcome visitors

Needlesss to say, dear reader, we are out of luck so far and our visitors remain, recently joined by a flock of young starlings taking communal baths in our bird baths and raiding the lawn and garden borders for any worms and insects they can find

But … in spite of all this there is one bright spot on my pond horizon - we have newts! I know, you don’t have to tell me, I am probably a hopeless case, but I rejoice in these lovely creatures inhabiting our pond. They look like tiny dinosaurs clambering out of the pond and then slithering back in and swimming gracefully away to the murky depths, hopefully out of the reach of the heron, should he stop by looking for a meal.

Well, dear reader, I wish you a very happy day and hope that next time we meet, we might have shed some of our garden passengers … somehow I doubt it.