More actvity on pond opposite house.

Every year the pond in fields opposite house fills and overflows creating a short lived wetland habitat. Every year the local farmer tries to chase the wildfowl off claiming they give his sheep worms. In reality sheep get worms through picking up the larvae when feeding in wet grass  and not off wildfowl. Sheep cough up the larvae that have hatched inside them and these larvae live in wet grass before getting ingested by another sheep and the lifecycle starts again. Funnily enough many of his sheep are also limping - a sign of foot rot which is also transmitted from sheep to sheep.

Despite his activities the pond attracts a small number of good local records annually. This year has been no exception. Its home to Great-crested Newts and attracts the local Heron when these amphibians come out of hibernation to breed.

This year, for the first time, we also had a Little Egret drop in for a couple of hours presumably on the look out for newts as well.  Although we've had them fly over the garden and seen them occasionally nearby this was the first to drop into the pond.

Another recent visitor that dropped in and stayed for short while was this Cormorant. Presumably it dropped in to check on the fishing as a check of the literature doesn't mention newts as a source of food for Cormorants.

A few years ago when the 'beast from the east' resulted in virtually the whole field being swamped a few good waders turned up including Ruff, Black-tailed Godwit & Curlew. This year it's attracted another Curlew and my 'first' Green Sandpiper.

Lapwings are regular spring visitors in small numbers but this year was exceptional with over 120 birds being counted at one stage.

Gadwall is another infrequent visitor with only one other record (albeit multiple birds). This year the pond attracted five birds of which one pair stayed almost a week.

 Virtually every morning the first thing I do before going down to make a mug of tea is check out the window to see what the pond has attracted over night.