A New Forest pond by Katy
I never did end the story of the New Forest bus-persons holiday.
So here is the conclusion: Katy’s picture of a New Forest pond (and we did go on the beach, and horse riding and watch the telly too – honest).
I know I’m in danger of fitting myself neatly into a number of well-known stereotypes with this post, but anyway….
Katy did this off her own bat: no help or suggestions with the picture were given at all. As far as I remember, I didn’t even suggest she do a picture like this, but she does like drawing.
So I was pretty impressed when she showed me the finished artcle. Her picture includes an amazingly good summary of what makes a New Forest pond tick: clean water, bare ground, mud and seasonal drawdown, along with a representation of two of Britain’s most threatened wild water plants (I checked with her: she really did mean the two rare plants I marked below on the drawing, which she saw).
Just goes to show you really shouldn’t underestimate children.
Like all great works of art (!), a little grown-up interpretation helps to increase one’s appreciation, so I attached a few labels to the picture (below) as explainers. Come to think of it, this would liven up some of our advice leaflets at work!
And here are a couple of pictures of the special plants.
Britain's smallest fern, Pillwort, looks nothing like a fern, except when the tiny shoots come up, curled up like a bishop's crozier. It loves the edges of muddy, trampled, grazed and unpolluted ponds; it also likes the edges of clean lakes. The New Forest has probably hundreds of ponds where it still can live; outside the forest, water and ponds are generally too degraded for a plant like this. The little balls at the bottom of each frond are the 'pills'.
Floating Water-plantain: this picture is from the website of Jonathon Briggs an independent canal ecologist (and all round good chap....)
