Natural pools: how they help understand the design of wildlife garden ponds

Very shallow ponds and pools, like the one above that we were looking in today in the New Forest, are an important guide to the design of good wildlife garden ponds.

They show the depth, cross section and size that is typical of small natural pools that have existed for countless millions of years around the world.

In the modern landscape they are especially common where grazing keeps ground vegetation low and there is little land drainage.

In Britain it is now very difficult to find landscapes which are free from the networks of drains – essential for efficient modern farming, but common in woodland too – that quickly and efficiently remove shallow pools like the one above.

The New Forest, although more drained than one might immediately suspect, is still wetter than most other parts of lowland Britain.

In the pond above there were caddis flies, water beetles, freshwater shrimps, pond skaters and stoneflies. There were also a few frog tadpoles and ponds only a little deeper than this often have smooth newts in the Forest. It goes without saying that this pond is fed by unpolluted water draining from the forest and heathland around it.

You can see the depth, which comes about half-way up mine and Katy’s wellies.

This is probably a little too shallow for the ordinary garden pond – it will dry out in the summer – no problem for maybe half of all freshwater plants and animals, but not ideal if you want to go pond dipping in the middle of summer. Ponds which dry out are entirely natural but, of course, are no use at all for fish keeping.

The weather’s warming up: water beetles, pond skaters and backswimmers are on the move

I photographed this spotted backswimmer climbing out of my pond on the reedmace, before flying off, last spring

Attention at this time of the year tends to focus on amphibians.

But now is the time when water beetles, backswimmers, lesser water boatmen and pond skaters are on the move too – nearly two months before the first damselflies and dragonflies make their appearance in May these animals are flying from pond to pond (and to lakes, rivers and streams too).

Last weekend we had the first really warm day of the spring and there were backswimmers flying off from our pond (I expect they were arriving too), and pond skaters have flown in after being absent for the winter.

No doubt the more flighty water beetles will be on the move now too, looking for suitable breeding sites.

Steve on newts and frogspawn

Check out Steve’s interesting comment.

Jeremy

Childrens pond dipping platforms: a barrier to understanding, a barrier to nature

Dipping platforms like this one - the watermark suggests it is something to do with the Forestry Commission - distort and limit understanding of ponds. In this gently shelving waterbody about 80% of the different species of pond animal children could expect to see live in the inch or two of shallow water that the dipping platform conveys them past - before corralling them over deeper, duller water where they will have little real experience of the water environment (unless natural disobedience tells them to ignore the fences and walk round the sides)

Dipping platforms are often believed to be an essential pre-requisite for clean and convenient exploration of ponds.

But they also create a subtle and unintended barrier, distorting our children’s perception of the natural world, limiting their understanding and degrading – you might even say falsifying – their experience.

How could something so apparently beneficial be so detrimental?

First, dipping platforms have a practical shortcoming: they almost inevitably take children away from the richest part of the pond – the very shallow edges. Indeed their use betrays a fundamental misunderstanding of pond ecology – that the best place to look for animals is out in relatively deep water.

They also, of course, cover up – sometimes destroy – the very edge habitat which is the most diverse part of almost every pond.

They are installed so that children can get to the pond without getting wet or muddy – and perhaps in a belief that being perched clear of the water is in some way safer. For busy teachers confronted by children who lack any kind of outdoor clothing – like a pair of Wellington boots – this can be an important consideration.

But most seriously of all they subconsciously demonstrate to children that water is something you must be suspicious of and kept away from – you must not expect to experience water or wet, or mud, or get a little dirty.

Just how harmful this distancing effect really is is still hard to know – we are conducting an uncontrolled experiment on our children’s perceptions of the water environment.

The alternative? Rather than spend hundreds or thousands of pounds on a construction which damages and distances children from the environment they have come to experience, spend the money on a set of wellies, or better still children’s all-over chest waders. Safety? You’re far safer learning how to behave in 2 or 3 inches of water at the edge of a shallow pond in the long-term, than perched out on dry land. And if the edge is too steep? Hire in a digger and reshape the pond to make the access easier (and the habitat better too).

I would never from choice investigate a pond from a platform perched above the water – I wouldn’t expect children to be forced to experience ponds in this way either.