Richard Torrens Ponds And Water Life
Dorset holiday	Electronics & DIY	Family History	Hi-Fi History	Misc	Natural History	Wild Food	Walks
Aquatic life		Various Botanical photos		Various Fungus photos		Ponds and water life

This is a pond of a type which once was quite common, but being undervalued, have been used as dumps and have been vanishing fast. This one is not easy to spot so has remained: yet it has a large amount of rubbish in and around it. This pond must rate high on any list of ponds that need restoration and cleaning up!

The pond is big enough that overhanging trees do not totally occlude daylight, but the pond is brown with tannins from rotting willow and hawthorn leaves, as well as from the large population of daphnia inhabiting it!

There are four pictures: two views of the pond itself, on of the pond edge - showing the rubbish and the fourth is a view looking south along Bottisham Lode which runs beside this pond and the large one to the north. Click on the thumbnail to download a full size photo (around 400kB each). That's me, in the first two, collecting daphnia, in mid November! The water level in 2003 was quite low in this pond. Since there had been very heavy rainfall of late, this can only be because of excessive drainage in the surrounding fenland.

Species

On November 20th 2003 I found:

• Fauna
  • Daphnia
  • Cyclops
  • Chaoborus larvae (glass worms)
  • Chironomid larvae (blood worms)
  • Assellus (water louse)
  • Cadis larvae.
    These are interesting as most of them in this pond make their cases out of dead leaves.
• Flora
  The pond is not notable for aquatic flora, being overgrown and, in summer, heavily shaded. The water is also quite brown with tannins released by the rotting leaves of overhanging willow and hawthorn.
  • Callitriche - water Starwort
    Don't know which one - but I've never noticed it growing in the pond. I often 'catch' pieces of it when collecting daphnia!
  • Water Crowfoot. Again, difficult to identify the exact species.

I suspect these plant fragments have been washed in from the adjacent ditches.

Diary

14th June 2004:

Daphnia (as is common in many ponds at this time of year) are scarce! In trying to catch daphnia, I notice a number of beetle larvae - Acilius sulcatus.

Spring 2005

The pond is in poor shape: water levels are low and daphnia is thin in the water. Quite a number of Acilius sulcatus

Top of page
Document URI: nathist.torrens.org /PAWL/Cambs/516653.html
Last modified: Mon, 26 Mar 2018 09:19:19 BST
Page first published 20th November 2002.
Page written and © by Richard Torrens