Garden Vistors

Doghouse Riley

Several of my neighbours have goldfish ponds.

One four doors away is always buying goldfish as losses are regular.

The people two doors away have this pergola at the bottom of their garden. I took this on "zoom" from our back bedroom window.

"We all know where the goldfish go."

Valley Gardener

OMG! Poor fish.😕😕

Doghouse Riley

Valley Gardener said:

OMG! Poor fish.😕😕

Yes,  but such a beautiful bird. So elegant in flight, but such an ungainly take off.

Gwenr

In our last garden we had a massive Koi pond, such a shame we had to net it, but the Heron thought we were offering a menu so we had no choice.

Doghouse Riley

Gwenr said:

In our last garden we had a massive Koi pond, such a shame we had to net it, shame about thatbut the Heron thought we were offering a menu so we had no choice.

Shame about that, but a lot depends on circumstances.

For the length of time, over thirty years, we had a 3000 gall koi pool , we never had problems with a heron. I built ours with sheer sides, the perimeter had large rocks which would give an uncomfortable footing for herons which can be ungainly birds.

I did have a small bit of net over the lip of the waterfall.

Herons are principally wading birds and will go to the ponds where there is easy access. Plenty near us.

Covering a pond does sometimes spoil the aspect. But you can get this black net sold by the metre from some garden centres.

I always used a net in the late autumn just to keep the falling wisteria leaves out of it.

I've added a  photo of our floating winter pool cover, to show that even against this the net is hard to see.

We've had frogs in our garden even before we had our first pond.

Gwenr

Our pond was 10'x10' and 5' deep and you are guite right about shallow ends, when we dug our first pond we found the Heron standing in it one morning when I opened the curtains, talk about shock.
In the bigger pond I was silly enough to put in rocks so wildlife could get out if needed, but forgot our friend the Heron could get in. 

The net didn't hardly show, but with a very young grandson as well, it provided a small reassurance of safety for us and the fish.

Gwenr

I must add, we haven't had a really cold winter for years, but as we live by the sea I think we have milder weather.

Doghouse Riley

I often say, we live in "The Tropic of Trafford," we usually have mild winters, as we are surrounded by hills on three sides.

Snow of any significance is a rarety here. We do get it from time to time.

But not worth speaking about since ten years ago.

Redwing

I have a medium sized wildlife pond.  I like it when Grey Herons turn up.  It tells me the pond is thriving and healthy. 

Hostafan1

the local otters have eaten all our fish so the herons just fly over

Gwenr

Know what you mean, when everywhere else has rain, we run dry for week after week. The only thing we do have a lot of is winds, they dry everything out, but even yesterday we did a 12 mile walk with no coats on, our garden registered 21deg, crazy for October.