The Museum Pond Through The Year
Spring
By early March, frog newts and toads will be starting to emerge from their winter retreats to begin a new cycle of life along with numerous other pond creatures. The warming sun will have caused many early insects to emerge. Early bumblebees will be foraging for nectar from spring plants around the pond.
The first frogs will be calling from the water to the females; whilst overhead the herons will listen for this and stalk the unwary, for he is an early breeder, taking advantage of this abundance.
From this point on the pond becomes busy and as the water temperature rises the first damselflies and dragonflies will emerge small red and the broad bodied chaser are first followed by the small blue damselflies. Early caddis flies emerge from the pond and sit like the dragonflies, drying their wings, though many species only fly at night to avoid their enemies.
By this time bats will have emerged from hibernation and there is one species that specializes in taking prey from water surfaces. The Daubentons bat will be seen swooping low over the pond's surface to catch the emerging caddis flies and moths. The submerged larva of the China mark moth live on the underside of lily leaves. It pupates to emerge in early summer to fly, mate and lay eggs on the now increasing pond surface vegetation!
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Summer
In summer the ponds surface may well be covered by the floating plants duckweed, water soldiers frogbit and water lily will provide resting platforms for many dozens of damselflies, dragonflies. Overhead swallow and house martin will arrive to take advantage of the myriad of insects emerging from and around the pond.
During the summer the pond sees great activity with small groups of children arriving at the zenith of the pond's year as they enjoy the great number of wriggling and crawling swimming creatures. Equipped with nets, bottles and glass trays they gather around the pond and plunge their nets below the surface and empty the contents into their trays.
Many of them discover water beetles, dragonfly nymphs and sticklebacks, whilst others find leeches, caddis fly larva with their unique cases and so much more like young newts frogs and toads and glass bottles of pond water reveals the smaller creatures, the shrimps, the dapbnia and the algae with its fine filaments. It is now the pond's wealth of creatures becomes apparent.
After the school groups depart the pond enters a new phase. Round its margins there are tall stands of greater willow herb, purple loostrife, and meadow sweet. On the surface, lily and crowfoot flower and attracted to this are numerous insects. But as summers passes the new generation of frogs and newts and toads leave the pond and others are securing the next generation by laying eggs to ensure that the following year will see the return of the water beetles, dragonflies and damselflies. So some temporarily exit the pond and others return.
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Autumn
By early autumn the first falling leaves will lay on the ponds surface, the late summer caddis fly will emerge to fly at night and many of the visiting birds such as the willow warbler, blackcap and garden warbler will return south to Africa, many having foraged round the pond, feeding young during the summer.
Winter
By October and November the last few larger insects will continue to hunt over the pond, Emperor and red darters will still be seen on warm days but we are coming to the end of the year and the vibrancy of the breeding season is over. The pond returns to the winter quiet, where we first saw it in January.
