My pond is very quiet still

Too cold yet - I'm in London and its still pretty chilly here. Welcome to GoY...

Thanks Bamboo, this site looks a lovely and friendly place. :)

Hello Bluebell,
Here in Sussex I have about 6 or 7 frogs this year and 2 clumps of spawn. They came in the 2nd week March. In the past I have had dozens of frogs by the end of February and masses of spawn. The numbers were down last year and are even worse this year. I fear our pondlife, like other wildlife, is under serious threat. I am going out this week to buy more pondplants so the tadpoles have more food and hiding places.

I'd remove the logs from your pond as they are totally un-necessary... Also how big is your 'pond' as in the photo it looks to be postage stamp size.

Thank you for your input Moon growe. It is a small pond - albeit larger than a postage stamp! It is a Bermuda cove pond installed as a small pond due to my children's safety. Quite frankly I am offended by your comment. I thought this was a friendly site. I was advised by a friend to put the logs there to create a habitat. I will be putting in a larger pond soon when I have the funds.

Penny farthin I hope the pond life recovers. My little pond is 2 years old now and last year it had 6 frogs in it and a toad. We had a lot of insects buzzing about in Aoril so hopefully they will return :)

Welcome to GOY Bluebell. I'm sure Mg did not intend to offend you. She is a fund of good advice which she gives freely and she says it how she sees it. I'm not apologising for her, I would not dare, but I don't want you to feel uncomfortable. I was concerned when I saw the 'log' seems to be a bit of sawn timber. I would worry that it might have been treated with a noxious substance which could kill plants and wildlife. I would remove it. There is a good site which deals with frogs and they are anxious for the public to make ponds as so many have disappeared over the years. Highlight the link below then right click. A drop down list will appear. Click on 'Go to -----' which will take you to their website.
http://www.froglife.org/what-we-do/just-add-water/

Your children will learn a lot from you having a pond.

I certainly didn't mean to offend, I admit I was a bit short but had similar concerns to Scotsgran...

Hi, thanks for all of your advice. The pond was netted over the winter but it has been removed now. The logs were in another part of the garden and I checked that they had not been treated with anything nasty. In fact, they have been lying in the garden in a shady copse for two years now. We are in the process of clearing an area ready to build a larger raised pond.

The smaller one was my first hobby pond lol. I had it full of frogs last year and there is a special built in wildlife ramp for the hoggie who likes to occasionally visit. :)

I have taken your advice in mind though and removed the timber and kept the logs. :)

The pots were home to a few frogs last year including a rather fat toad who decided to shelter in the mud in one.

Snoop dog - My boys love the pond and the eldest has the daily job of checking for floating leaves. That and the other chores around the house. :)

Bluebell I did not know what a Bermuda Cove pond was so googled it. I think its a great idea to almost half fill it with stones to make it less dangerous for the children. I did not notice the logs up on top of the stones. I wish there was a way of enlarging the photos as the size shown is a bit hard to see clearly. It is good for your children to take responsibility for jobs. You sound like a lovely mum.

Hi Scotsgran, my boys love spotting the wildlife. In fact my youngest son is currently looking for wrigglies lol. I've added another pic with the pond in better focus.

Everything's still sleeping in mine too today was the first time the fish came up to be fed, lucky you having frogs I've only ever had one lone frog calling for a mate think the fish put them off we do have newts though and a pair of mallards the other day!!much prefer them to the heron eeek.
The plant pots are a good idea for little creatures to hide :-)
Welcome to GOY from me too :-)

Bluebell our youngest used to help me in the garden. She would turn over stones and if she found anything was very happy to pick it up and show it to me and a thousand and one questions. Sinbad if you look at the Froglife web site there is advice about not having fish and wildlife in the same pond.

Sorry for the late reply ( been at uni ) I work in education so I love teaching my two ( as well as the other 27 children in the class) all about ponds. They're getting quite knowledgable about the pond life now. We also have a natural pond close by with regular pond dipping sessions for children.

Simbad - I love newts but we've never had them as I think the size of the pond puts them off.

I hope you would consider obtaining a low power microscope or stereoscope (see my photo section for a view on mine). If you do, you will see that what you called a quiet pond was actually a riot of life of tremendous variety. I find more interest in viewing a drop of water from a small pond than watching what goes on in a fifty gallon fish tank.

Scot we do have a smaller pond especially for wildlife,minus the fish,but everything seems to prefer the bigger one!
I only discovered we had newts while fishing weed out Bluebell put it on the side for the creatures to get back in and saw movement tiny little thing then another and another, now if I look closely I can see them coming to the surface for air sometimes, they're obviously better at hiding from the fish while tadpoles than frogs, I wish they'd use the other pond but like you say they probably prefer the bigger deeper one.

Loosestrife - I have bought one of those lol! It's fascinating seeing the tiny microscopic life. My children are enthralled. It's amazing how much life there is in it. Also, today I saw my first pond snail in there :) Nearly April too so I'm looking forward to seeing more pond life :)

I have two ponds the daft frogs use both, no amount of education can convince them to stay out of the fishpond, lol, as you can imagine the fish have a feast once they find the spawn, the frog population does ok though as no fish in the bottom one, I myself have a wonderful time keeping them safe from the cats as they go walkabout between the two ponds, I found a huge toad living in the logpile last year so hoping to see it again, never had newts though, my children and in recent years my grandchildren have had hours of fun watching the wildlife over the years as I still do....

I love nothing better than sitting in my garden on a weekend in the sun and discovering all the wildlife. I can't wait to break up in 2 weeks for Easter and spend time in the garden again. We've been here 2 yrs now but I still look at it with awe and wonder every day. My husband had best get cracking on the new pond, I'm getting impatient lol. I've set up a pond in a pot recently and its already starting to fill with worms etc. I am hoping my dwarf water lily will bloom this year.

They attract so much wildlife don't they I remember a couple of years ago when we had a really hot summer sitting by the pond broad daylight and a bat!! swooping down and drinking from the pond amazing.....