Probably one of the best things anyone can do for wildlife is to put in a pond; a bit of water attracts a lot of life. We dug our pond in the Autumn of 2008 and within days of a small pool forming, creatures started moving in.
We didn’t go for a little pond, there seemed no point as we have the space, plus the larger the pond the more stuff you are going to attract. We have also planted it up with native species such as; starwort, water plantain, flowering rush, bog cotton, yellow flag iris, native water lily. The consequence has been a buzzing and bustling habitat. A huge amount has descended on the pond, under the water there are; newts, frogs, toads, water beetles, larvae of all sorts, water snails, water boatmen and unidentifiables. On top of the water; water skaters, whirly gigs, damselflies, dragonflies, broad bodied chasers. All around the pond bird life thrives, with a pied fly catcher bringing on its brood in a nest box just near the pond, swallows and house martins swooping in scooping up insects, a (very shy) heron who often is spotted flying away from the pond and we know the red deer come to drink there as we regularly see their footprints in the mud.