- Joined
- Sep 29, 2010
- Messages
- 343
- Reaction score
- 159
- Location
- South carolina
- Hardiness Zone
- 8a
- Country
Pictures would help and they will be forthcoming soon. Our pond sits next to our deck and porch, so that approach is undesirable for a heron but not impossible. That said the access to that side is so restricted that it is not an easy solution for heron. Then there is the dog who barks at anything that moves. Our back yard is surrounded by our fence, so the pond is at least 70 feet away and hard to observe from the lake. No heron has ever landed in our yard. The lake itself is stocked with bass, carp and crappies I think and offers a simpler food source in competition. The other three sides of the pond are equipped with plant sumps and the skimmer housing that holds a bird back at least three feet and are heavily planted obscuring the view at a herons eye level. The corners are blocked with an ornate oriental fence sittin on the pond wall, and the pond is elevated 18 inches above the outside ground. If the bird mounts the wall then the surface is 8 inches below his feet, and a heron cannot stab effectively below its feet too deeply. The pond walls are vertical and drop to about 30 inches below the surface. We maintain about 14 to 18 inches of turbidity, you can measure this with a Secchi disk, so the fish are obscured unless they surface. Then there are the two machine guns turrets, ....kidding.