Pond update

I was pleased to see the article about George Millins, who lives in Great Waldingfield,  in the Suffolk Free Press on Thursday.  George has done a lot to encourage me and many other people to think harder about finding ways to conserve the wildlife that we enjoy so much in Suffolk.  As regular readers will know he has contributed informative and interesting articles to this website from time to time for which I am always very grateful.

It was in part inspired by George that Nick and I decided some time ago now to create a pond in our garden, and I have also written about progress here from time to time.  The pond is now well established, as can be seen above, although it gets a bit like vegetable soup from time to time!

One disappointment has been that the enthusiasm of ducks for the pond, particularly in the spring, has meant that frogs have not established themselves.  I understand that this is because the ducks eat the spawn.  Rendle the Lurcher takes some interest in the ducks and sometimes chases them off, but they know that he is not very serious about the task and don’t fly very far before returning.  We do however have a fine variety of bug life and have seen newts from time to time.   Many other birds, besides the ducks, find the pond an excellent place for their morning bath.

In today’s East Anglian Daily Times there is an article about the intention to promote areas of wildflowers in public places in Sudbury.  I hope that this will please George since he has long campaigned for public areas to be allowed to be a little less tidy for the sake of our fellow creatures. I have to say that I agree with this view, and Babergh officers are also keen on the idea,  but such initiatives do not always please residents.  I doubt if I will ever be asked to judge a Best Kept Village Competition.

Behind the pond in the picture above you may be able to see the area of our garden that we encourage to grow wild.  At the suggestion of Dr Taylor from Branchlines, we only cut this once a year, doing half in July and the other half in the autumn.  This has the effect of encouraging the growth of different types of plants in each section.

In addition to listening to people like George and Dr Taylor, there is lots of information on the internet about how you can make your garden more wildlife friendly.