All the plants have now arrived at the surface, and the marginals are all through the water line and are progressing on their journey upwards. I can't wait until they flower, it's going to look lovely.
The other exciting thing is we now have a food source in the pond, so the start of the wildlife cycle had begun. We have wriggly things in there! So I've been busy taking photos and identifying what they are.
One of them is the midge larvae (chironomid), also sometimes known as a bloodworm, due to it's colour. It's really interesting to watch it move around the water as it coils into an S shape as it wriggles around in a figure of 8 movement. These larvae will turn into pupa at the bottom of the pond, and then when ready the pupa will make it's way to the surface again and emerge as a midge. Thankfully a non biting type. The midge then lays it's eggs in the pond in jelly strings and the whole cycle starts again. Initially I didn't spot the eggs on the surface as I mistook them for debris but on closer inspection I discovered we have midge eggs in the barrel pond too.
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| Bloodworm |
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| Midge eggs |
Also in the barrel are some other creatures which looked similar to tiny tadpoles. This would have been very exciting but knowing it's a new pond and with no frogs around yet that was not possible. On a closer look and managing to get a photo, I've now identified them as mosquito larvae. There are a large quantity of them, I'm hoping some predators move in soon, so they don't all turn into biting mossies!
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| Mosquito larvae |
The sparrows visiting the garden have also started using the pond as a water source, and are using it to drink from. Not sure if they would eat the larvae from there as well?
It takes a new pond a while to settle down, and all the critters and creatures need to find this new source of water, we want it to be a great wildlife pond, even though it's small. It will balance out eventually in the same way our garden did last year. We had loads of greenfly, we patiently waited and along came the ladybirds, they reproduced, and got the whole thing into balance. Nature is a wonderful thing.
That's really nice. I'm about to get a barrel (I think it's the same size and type as yours) to start my own pond. Could you give me some advice about setting it up?
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Hello, thanks for your comment. I'm not sure if you saw the first post about the barrel pond? That explains a bit more about how we set it up, and what plants we've put in etc.
ReplyDeletehttp://great-little-minds.blogspot.com/2011/04/barrel-pond.html
I don't think I put the size in either of the posts. The barrel is 70cm diameter, and about 45cm deep. We sunk it into the ground, by about 20cm, so it matched up with our beds and looked more naturalised. So there is about 25cm of the barrel visible.
Hope your own barrel pond goes well, and if you have any other questions, get back in touch.
Kind Regards
Fi
Ah I've got midge eggs too! I thought they were seeds or something blown in from the garden. Your little barrel looks much healthier than mine bucket! Lisa x
ReplyDeleteI thought the same to begin with about the midge eggs. My barrel looks healthy at the minute, but I'm prepared it may go through a more stagnant stage as it balances and equalises. So I may get a smelly pond too, at some point! It's only been going a few months.
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