Below you'll find a list of all posts that have been categorized as “pond”
It is cold, the pavement on Earlham Grove icy with frost. Frost on car roofs too, as I walk down to the garden. Car roofs are the most visible frosty surfaces. They are horizontal and so lose heat easily. Clear nights are the coldest as there are no insulating clouds. Car roof tops are metal, good conductors, so easily lose …
In the early hours of Monday (7 July) through to 8am, we had 21 mm of rain as measured on our rain gauge. The average for July is 41 mm; so that’s half a month’s rain in one day day. It gave the ground a good soaking. I examined the earth with a trowel and the rain had soaked down …
Damselflies are mating over the pond. The male grasps the female around the head. He flexes his abdomen to encourage the female to loop her abdomen round to interlock with him, forming the ‘wheel’ position where mating takes place. They have spent two years as larvae at the bottom of the pond, before emerging as adults. The adults live for …
The Cherry blossom has gone from our two large cherry trees. First on the white blossomed tree where it had come earlier and then on the pink blossomed tree. The fall on the pink tree was like snow. Outside the garden, under the tree, was a large pool of blossom. I saw it at 7.30 one morning, a pristine, pinky …
Our pond has had a green bloom for the last year. The bloom is composed of microscopic algae, tiny single celled plants. When the bloom first occurred last April, I thought the bloom, by cutting out light, might kill off underwater plants. But there was no effect over a month or two, so I forgot about it. A few days …
Last week, I estimated the proportion of frogs eggs that become mature adults. I wanted to know what wildlife groups were saying. So I trawled the internet. An assortment of figures are quoted for eggs to mature adult. 1 in 50 is a common quote, though 1 in 12,000 is heard in our garden, an enormous span. I found this …
In the garden yesterday, there were at least six frogs in the pond, and two more on the concrete outside the pond, hearing the croaking above them in the pond, but not knowing how to get to it. We have what we call a frog ladder, a ribbed piece of wood, slanting from ground to pond rim, but I have …
In the shelter, it is warm and sunny. The walls are transparent plastic as is the roof. It is about 15 degrees outside but considerably warmer in the shelter. The extra warmth is due to the greenhouse effect. Not global warming this time, but due to its original meaning: the extra heat gained in a glass (or clear plastic) enclosure. …
Signs of Spring It’s cold today but spring is on the way. Tulips and daffodils are coming up around the garden. Not flowering as yet. The euphorbia by the side wooden fence has its hardly noticeable green flowers. They have a long season, so they will be noticed. The kerria by the Dare to Dream stage has its small yellow …
Warm air holds more moisture. But you may have noted, I said it is chilly. Well, moisture in the air is picked up over the sea, mostly the Atlantic and that retains its summer warmth well into late autumn. Warm air also has more energy, which gives us fierce winds and storms. Around the country there has been some very wet weather, with extensive flooding in places like Looe in Cornwall:
