A Year On The Pond

  So there we were in the middle of storm Christoph, driving rain, wind, when suddenly it became a white out. The pond froze up again pretty quickly and the ducks predictably fled.  More came down yesterday and we were left with a beautiful winter wonderland. Last night I wrapped up and went down to sit in the arbour for half an hour.  It was lovely just to sit in the dark and watch the snow and the frozen water.  On my walk around the pond I discovered it seems to have flooded over a lot further than the traditional edges we are used to, it's actually flooded a little into next doors garden and I imagine when all this snow melts again that might get a bit worse.  Meanwhile I'm looking at the ground worrying over the state of my grass underneath it (sorry neighbour!) In other news, my research into the pond has yielded a little more information.  When I was a child there was a disused airfield locally.  It was amazing, I spent ...

  As I've written before our home was built in 1999/2000 on what was farmland.  I've never seen images of the land before the houses were built, and although the local council has some photographs taken for the planning permission these have been scanned and photocopied into monochrome blurs now. I decided to ask our village Facebook group about the land and learned more in an evening than in the time we've lived here.  Our home is built on what was Wenlocks Farm.  It seems to have been a bit of a community hub supplying milk and eggs to the locals.  Perhaps the nicest thing to come out of the post were the tales from the 50's and 60's of hi jinx around the pond from people falling in to teenage boys braving the ice as a dare in the winter.  One story apparently featured in our local newspaper of a boy going on to the ice to rescue his dog and getting stuck himself.  Perhaps when life is a little more normal I shall have a look in t...

  We know the pond levels rise and fall as it's fed by a spring, but we've never actually studied it. This year I resolved to take a snapshot every day from the CCTV camera at the front.  This meant that I could knit together the images and watch the levels rise and fall over the year.  For the first half of this month very little has changed.  I tend to look at the board at the end of the pier to spot any big changes.   When I woke up this morning I thought the pond looked much fuller than yesterday so I took my daily photo and compared to the pier.  Can't believe how much it's filled overnight, and worryingly storm Christoph isn't yet here... I'm told the pond has never flooded, though it has been known to run off slightly into a street drain that was put in when the houses are built.  Be interesting to see what tomorrows photo brings!

  This mornings alarm call for Steve was a pair of rather loud mallards demanding breakfast.  Important to note, I sleep like the dead and I don't get up especially early, so all matters duck prior to 9am fall to him. Unsure when they came back, they weren't here last night so assuming they appeared at first light.  This is almost certainly Duncan and Egwina.  We can spot Egwina reasonably simply as she has a bit of a distinctive walk, kind of a hop/hobble that stands out, she's also, like Duncan, rather rotund for a wild duck.  Duncan is a different thing, we can only ever assume it's him as he's with Egwina, but the giveaway tends to be how tame they are when fed, and of course, the obvious tell of knowing that sitting on the front door mat will summon a human with food.    Not sure who is the better trained here, us or them... The pond is finally starting to thaw, but the ice has been so thick that it's not fully melted, but...

  Pond update.  Still frozen.  Still no ducks. It's all a bit strange, leaving the house without being accosted by a small, shouty bird.   I believe it's going to get warmer here this week so our friends might just put in an appearance. In order to satisfy duck lovers here is a photo of our first clutch.  These appeared on the first weekend of lockdown last year and frankly kept me going through it.  This was our first foray into duck Grand parenting and a welcome sight.   The summer of 2019 Egwina had busied herself nesting in the duck house and began what we came to learn, was a nesting pattern where she would come out twice a day, head to the door for food and then have a good old wing stretch.  A good wash would follow and then she would return to the nest.  She did this daily, you could almost set a watch by her.  But then a month passed and there was no sign of any ducklings.  Slowly, one by one she tu...

  When you think it can't get colder, it does. -4 here today and any plans for work outside have gone out of the window in favour of a heated blanket and Netflix. We are now a duckless pond.  Dot and Webster have now been gone for a few days so I think they have finally fledged properly.  Still no sign of Egwina and Duncan either, but with the pond in thick ice for well over a week now I think they are probably hunkering down wherever they are and making the best of it. I'm fairly sure the ice is now thick enough to walk on, though this isn't something I'm going to try.  I've hit it hard this morning with a broom and not made a dent in it.  Even the free patch under the willow is now solid.  We are forecast heavy snow later so my fear that someone wont realise it's a pond and decide to run across what they think is beautiful virgin snow has returned. The plant btw is called Gary.  Well, it's not, but I'm worse than useless at recall...

  Warm sunny days messing around in boats.  I really miss those. This was taken back at the end of September when the weather was unseasonably mild.  We had cut down the grasses around the edge of the pond to help them grow back better in the spring.  I was lazily floating around under the guise of weeding out decaying waterlilys,  but truth be told I was probably relaxing in the motion and enjoying the sunshine.  I can't row anyway, unless around in one large circle counts.... The water level today is now about an inch below the wooden board you can see on the front of the pier.  I don't think I appreciate just how much it does rise over the winter months until there is a physical marker to compare it. When we checked this morning the last of our winter ducklings have flown the nest. I hope Dot and Webster come back for a visit, although chances are we wouldn't pick them out in a line up.  All is quiet here now and it's a...

It's one of those photos you think could well be in black and white, only sadly it isn't.  Yep, more snow, and more forecast.  Dot and Webster are still huddled down under the willow with a small patch of water that hasn't frozen.   Getting food out there now involves a precarious trip to the end of the pier and throwing it through gaps in the willow branches.  I've now dispatched Steve to do this several times, along with putting fresh seed on the bird tables whilst I sensibly watch from the living room window in my woolly lounge pants.  Not daft me. I put the wildlife camera out under the willow last night and discovered nothing more than 'ducks don't move much overnight'.   I did notice footprints on the side nearest the house earlier which I'm assuming belong to our resident fox so tonights plan is to put the camera out around that area and see who's visiting.   Well, I'll send Steve.....😉

Well, it's New Years Day and so starts my resolution to document a year of life on our pond. We have 2 resident mallard ducks who we christened Egwina and Duncan some time ago. Poor Egwina was a tad confused with the warm Autumn and decided to surprise us with a clutch of eggs which hatched on Sunday 18th October. Seven survived and we now have just two left to fledge. Today Dot and Webster are sheltering under the willow tree as the pond is still frozen across most of it's surface. I've trekked down there several times with food and they seem as happy as ducks in minus temperature waters can be. Their parents are nowhere to be seen at the moment, we aren't entirely sure where they disappear too but Steve has a theory they have day jobs at the local park as the usually appear back in our pond around 5pm. I have decided to investigate what exactly ducks do all night on an icy pond and plan on setting up a wildlife camera later today. We've had fabulous luck captu...

  Back in February 2017 I was idly browsing Right Move with a mug of tea. Steve and I had talked of moving but not really with any conviction. Then I saw Pond House listed. The next morning we hopped in the car and drove the mile from our current home to have a look. It was unexpected to say the least, a modern late 90's Cul De Sac and then at the end Pond House. The estate agent photos couldn't really convey the size of the pond. Coming in at around 122ft x 130ft it was, as our daughter exclaimed, not a pond but "A bloody lake!" It was also full of ducks and Moorhens. It was love at first sight. We eagerly called the estate agent who was unhelpful to say the least. Eventually, after much badgering, they told us there had been no interest in the property and the owners had decided to let it for 12 months. We were gutted. We asked the estate agent to pass on our details to the owner. They refused so we turned detective. We returned to the street, quizzed t...