Here
are some other examples of the relative simplicity of good pond creation, to
follow up the last blog featuring the newish pools dug out on Blakemoor Farm near Cresswell. The
pond above is not at all near Cresswell: it is from a Forestry Commission site
in the SW Scottish Borders from the late 1990s. This is before the renaissance in
pond studies and the spread of improved advice. The Commission was willing to
have a go at pond creation. Nothing fancy ofrlarge scale, but successful. This
site is a small corner of a plantation, one of three ponds scrapped out to create a cluster rather than one big, deep, boringly similar site. In
high summer this new little pond was close to drying. I have never seen so many Emerald damselflies (Lestes sponsa) as I did that day. The
rushes and grasses were a misted by their glittering wings and sparkling
bodies. They like sites that dry out, with the females laying eggs in the stems
of plants above the water which hatch the following year if water levels have
risen sufficiently to submerge the lower parts of the shoots and leaves.
At another site the Commission’s staff had simply added a
few deeper JCB gouges to another pool. These refuges were full of beetles and
waterboatmen, hanging on for when the rains returned, although, knowing water
beetles and waterboatment, the rains better not be too long coming or else they’ll
all have eaten each other.
Nothing fancy or complicated but simple habitat
creation and above all a willingness to try
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