Re-repairing Our Small Pond

We noticed that our small pond was leaking because there was a big hole in the liner, so we decided to repair it. We bought some new thick plastic and doubled it over and used it to line our new pond.  We drained all the water out, moved the water plants out carefully so that the roots didn't brake, threw all the dirty mud on our plant beds as mulch and threw away the old liner. After that we started to put the new plastic in the pond. When we had finished putting it in we started to pour clean water into the pond. Whilst we were pouring in the water I noticed a larvae on the ground. I picked it up and realized that it was a dragonfly larvae that we had disturbed when removing all of the mud out of the pond. At first I thought it was dead but then my Grandad told me to put it in water just to be sure. I told him there wasn't any point as I knew it was dead, but my Grandad insisted.  I put the larvae in some water and to my surprise it started swimming. I was shocked because it looked dead and it was very light. Then I thought there must be a lot of them there so I started to look for them in the mud that my granddad had thrown away on the beds, and sure enough I found another one!! The second one I found was as big as my thumb which is about 5 cm long. Then my Grandma started to look for them and she found another one. We decided to put them in a big bucket of water until the pond was finished. We got back to work filling the pond with rain water but every now and then I kept looking for more dragonfly larvae and I found another 5 but 2 of them had already died ;(  so all together there were 5 dragonfly larvae which was epic!!! It took us about 2 hours to finish the pond and it looked GREAT!!! The water was clean, it wasn't dirty and there were no dead insects in it. So after we had finished making the pond we put in the dragon fly larvae  and I watched them swim around for a little bit.  Then we went inside to have lunch.

Me and my grandma looking for dragonfly larvae

Just put in the new liner

Pouring in the water

 

Finishing up the pond

               

Dragonfly larvae

The new pond finished 

Pond Life In The Winter- Dragonfly's

What do dragonflies do in the winter? Most of the the fully grown dragonflies will die before winter approaches, however some adult dragonflies will MIGRATE south and will spend the winter as adults there!! Not many insects are active in the winter, but the dragonfly larvae are. In the winter the larvae will swim around in icy ponds. They will live underwater in winter and feed and grow throughout the season becoming adults in early spring.  Once when I was watching a little fish swim around in the shallows of our pond, I saw how a dragonfly nymph jumped out of the sand, grabbed a little fish and swum under the sand with the dead fish in its mouth!!!
  

Here is some pictures of  dragonflies  I saw  at a festival  

Pond life in the winter- Pond skaters and Water boatman

Pond skaters- Pond skaters do not spend all their time on the water, in autumn they will fly far away from the water to hibernate through the winter. The Pond skaters will emerge from hibernation in the warm spring. I watch them with amazement as they eat their prey (normally flies or insects).  They stand on the water patiently until a fly or some kind of insect falls in the water and then they will jump on the prey and start demolishing their victim. But how do they know that an insect has fallen in the pond so far away????  They can sense the vibrations and ripples on the water when some thing falls or flies in it!!   

Common Pond Skater eating an ant!

Water boatman-  In winter most of these insects can survive, even under a thick layer of ice. They row very slowly under the ice looking for a trapped air bubble. They fill up their own air supply with the air of a bubble and then dive down to the bottom. When the water gets really cold they will still survive, in fact in one way it is better for them in the winter!?why? Because the ice cold water contains more oxygen. The bubbles are also normally larger in winter than summer. According to some people, if water boatman freeze they can simply thaw out and start swimming around again in spring!


  

Water boatman

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Putting Up Bird Boxes

A couple of days ago my dad and I put up bird boxes for all kinds of garden birds: Great tits, blue tits and robins. They were made by our friend, he is really good at making them. He crafted us about 10 beautifully made bird boxes!!  My dad put them up in all kinds of different trees and made sure that they were high in them because the cat could eat the birds!


Here is an video of my dad putting up a bird box!!

A BIT ABOUT THE DIFFERENT BOXES

We have 3 different types of bird boxes. Each one is designed for a different species - blue tits, great tits,sparrows  and  robins. There are 2 main types of bird boxes, the open fronted bird boxes which are for robins and the hole fronted boxes which  are for the tits. The size of the holes differ - 28mm  for the great tits and the size of the blue tit holes are a little smaller at 25mm.  WHY do we have so many bird boxes???  We want to have lots of birds in our garden so that they can prey upon the caterpillars that eat our plants and vegetables. If you want to learn how to make these bird boxes then click  here.

When we were putting the bird boxes up, our neighbour called us over to look at her new birds that some one gave to her. As soon as I saw them I recognized them to be some kind of partridge and I was right :), they are called grey partridges. They are stunning! Their necks are orange-brown and they have grey feathers on their body. Here is an picture of these breathtaking birds.

Grey partridges - Perdix perdix

Pond life in the winter- terrapins and fish

My Pond Turtle-  Emys orbicularis

What do turtles do in the winter? Turtles will hibernate on land, they will dig into the soil under the frost line, and sometimes will go in very deep leaf litter. They can also hibernate in the water. Turtles breathe with their lungs, at least from spring to late autumn. They need very little oxygen when they are hibernating and if they hibernate in the water they can get it from there.  In winter their metabolism will slow right down to the bare minimum needed for life, their heart will slowly stop beating and they will breathe very slowly.  If you watch them, you will notice that they breathe very quickly in the summer and then very slowly when it's winter. Food is no problem when hibernating  for the turtle, because they will hunt for a couple of days before winter until they can't eat anymore! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r00KJb8yW2Q - here is an video of my pond turtle eating bread!

Common carp- Cyprinus carpio

What do our fish do in the winter?  Common carp hibernate under mud in the ponds .We dug our pond deep in the ground so that the carp could over winter there. Apparently the carp like to go to deeper waters because it's warmer then the shallow waters at winter! Carp can survive very cold winters. We know that for sure because here in Bulgaria there are some very cold winters and they still live. Last year we had carp, perch and roach in our pond but after the winter ended there were only carp left. I could see loads of dead perch and roaches when the ice had melted but not one single carp - they had all lived!

Pond Life In The Winter- Frogs and Grass snakes

I wanted to know about what happens to all of the nature from our pond in winter. For example where they hibernate, how do they survive and lots more. So i'm going to  make a blog series and share what I learn.

Here is a video of a  frog in my pond croaking

What do frogs do in the winter?- Common frogs will normally hibernate in water for example rivers,streams,springs and ditches. However some will hibernate on land, buried in soil or in small caves and logs. In Finland Common frogs have even been found hibernating in dens of adders!!!! (Vipera berus). Another species of European frog that usually hibernates on land (Rana lessonae), the pool frog, can sometimes move between  hibernation periods in the winter. The marsh frog, (Rana riaibunda) the biggest and most aquatic frog, mainly hibernates under water in ponds but sometimes leaves the ponds that they have been in for years and moves to a river to hibernate. Rarely marsh frog babies  will spend the winter on land. Me and my dad were wondering how do these frogs survive in the cold winter? Antifreeze! Basically frogs have lots of sugars in there organs that prevents them from freezing, they will stop breathing and the heart will not beat until it gets warmer again  

What do Grass snakes do in the winter?-   The grass snakes hibernate from October to April in Composts or holes in the ground. They normally will hibernate alone but sometimes they can hibernate together. They will stay in hibernation until it gets warmer.

Next week I'm going to publish a blog about terrapins and fish in our pond! Stay tuned for my new post and learn some amazing facts!!

Facts About Great Tits

Great Tit Parus major

• Great tits eat Spiders and Insects which are captured by foliage gleaning.
• During the breeding season they like to feed protein-rich caterpillars to there young.
• Great tits help to reduce caterpillars damage to apple orchards  by 50% .
• In autumn and winter they add seeds and berries to there diet.
• In England some of the Great tits know how to open foil caps of milk bottles.
• In 2009 Great Tits were recorded to kill Bats!!!
• These are the first song birds to be seen to kill Bats!!
• Also these strange birds have been know to use a pin needle to get out grubs from a hole in a tree!!!!!! OMG

Here are some great tits  feeding from a bird feeders we made

                                        

We are going to put 10 bird boxes up and hopefully the great tits will nest in them.
Here is a picture of one of the bird feeders we going to get!

 

Our friend is making us some bird feeders