Last week I added a few new plants to the pond. I’ve been doing this on and off over the spring/summer since completing work.
The aim this time was to add two types of thing. One, was to add a native lily to add more shade to the middle of the pond. The other, was to add some additional marsh marigold and bugle around the margins to give more cover, particularly to encourage amphibians such as frogs.
To really make this work, I started moving some of the stones at the edge to bed the marsh marigolds into some crevices. After planting the first one in, I spotted movement. Something had appeared between the stones.
I was doing this work to encourage amphibians, but I never expected it to work so quickly! I’d not seen one since the start of June, so to find one living in there was a real surprise.
Even better soon followed. While planting the next marigold, I spotted another frog.
Maybe that was the same one, and it had moved around very quickly? Or maybe not.
So there at least two resident frogs at the moment. It could be three, I can’t be sure the frog at the bottom is the same one I saw first, even though it did move after I (accidently) disturbed it.
Frogs weren’t the only cool wildlife. there were several semaphore flies doing a brilliant wing-flicking courtship display too. The flick their wings, highlighting the white tips, like a flag semaphore operator on an aircraft carrier.
Here is the pond as it stands right now. Hopefully you can spot the changes.
