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Caught in the act!

FlinsterFlinster Posts: 883
edited April 2018 in Wildlife gardening
Staring at the taddies this morning and ‘bam’! Had my phone in my hands ... I only dug the pond in November so larva must have come in on plants, so pretty new. Damsel or Dragonfly?

Posts

  • JellyfireJellyfire Posts: 1,139
    Not sure which, but cracking pics
  • LynLyn Posts: 23,190
    Now you know where all your tads go! No wonder they say you’re lucky to get one grown up tadpole per hundred. 😢
    Gardening on the wild, windy west side of Dartmoor. 

  • plant pauperplant pauper Posts: 6,904
    Oh stop Lyn. I was watching one little lone tadpole this morning making it's way across a big open space just begging to be eaten by a beetle or a newt. 
  • FlinsterFlinster Posts: 883
    It’s damsel I think, nice surprise to see it, but I’m not holding out much hope of many tadpoles surviving! My neighbour gave me two small clumps, but watching this voracious food fest, it’s fingers and toes crossed! The sun has prompted a burst of algae/blanket weed, I’ve put two tights legs stuffed with barley straw in and have two pots of watercress already so hopefully that will help. Problem is my water hawthorn just hasn’t grown! I think it got hit by Ice as it wasn’t deep enough. It had leaves but they just turned brown and slimy and fell off, so there isn’t enough cover over the surface. I’m thinking of cutting out water Lilly leaf shapes from spare pond liner and floating those until I can sort out more plants- what do you think?
  • LynLyn Posts: 23,190
    That won’t work the plants have to be growing.
    you could buy a couple of bags of watercress from a super market and just throw it in, no need for pots, once it starts making roots it will use up some of the nutrients in the pond.
    I originally bought these and within two years I had to pull quite a lot out for the compost bin.  , it grows very quickly and if you have enough of this your water will be perfect, I’ve never had to use barley straw or anything like that. 
    Just in the first year I had some blanket weed which I twiddled out with a stick, none since.

    https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/1-50-Bunches-Oxygenating-Pond-Water-Plants-Ceratophyllum-Weighted/161675946591?hash=item25a4a32a5f:m:mAl8OvX8yl3ttf0JwIgkLoQ

    https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/1-500-Bunches-Oxygenating-Pond-Water-Plants-weed-Elodea-crispa-replacement/161621237383?hash=item25a1605e87:m:m_4-nAo7BtcgVFOBNoNUZNA
    Gardening on the wild, windy west side of Dartmoor. 

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