Identifying wildlife in pond

BenCotto

Today I noticed something I have not seen before in my pond and I would be grateful for advice in identifying it. Nothing dramatic, I’m afraid, but swarms of microscopic ‘things’ looking like what I imagine plankton looks like. These things are so small they can barely be seen but they buzz around as if electrically charged in a tight densely packed group about the size of a small football. At first glance I thought they were minute escaping bubbles of air because they were stationed over the lily pots. The newts were swimming through the swarms seemingly dismissing them as a source of food so insignificant not to be worth bothering about.

i would be grateful if anyone can tell me what it is. The air temperature today was about 23°C and it was sunny.

Alan Clark2 in Liverpool

Possibly daphnia (water fleas) or cyclops. It would help if you could collect some in a bottle to examine more closely.

Guernsey Donkey2

We have had clusters of "things" in our pond too, which we think are waterboatmen.  They are roughly the size of a full stop and so far the newts have not devoured them. There are a few adult wbm in the pond too.