Hi all,
I'm a relative newbie to fish ponds. In the fall we bought a house that already had two existing ponds in the front yard. They are each a little over 200 gallons and the top one waterfalls into the lower. Like everyone, it was a very harsh winter, and when the top pond finally thawed and I started spring clean out of debris I realized that the top pond was missing some gold fish. Actually a big portion of the population is missing. One of the fish was at least a couple years old, pretty white and orange fancy gold fish. Well I figured that we just lost part of the population due to the deep freeze, and we also had a filter tube burst during a deep freeze.
However, today I was finally thinking back to the winter. One night I woke up and glanced out the window to realize that our motion detector flood lights were on. They shine right on the ponds and front yard. Well I looked out the window and on a fence rail, waist high, next to the pond, sat a large brown owl. It looked right up to me and flew away. It was right in front of the top pond.
So my question is how common is it that owls start feeding on pond fish? Because the water lily's aren't blooming in that pond, there is very little coverage. Where as the bottom pond has rock caves and other plants. Also what can I do about owls? Are there any kind of deterrents? Or should I just add in different kinds of plants?
Thank you ahead of time for any advice!
I'm a relative newbie to fish ponds. In the fall we bought a house that already had two existing ponds in the front yard. They are each a little over 200 gallons and the top one waterfalls into the lower. Like everyone, it was a very harsh winter, and when the top pond finally thawed and I started spring clean out of debris I realized that the top pond was missing some gold fish. Actually a big portion of the population is missing. One of the fish was at least a couple years old, pretty white and orange fancy gold fish. Well I figured that we just lost part of the population due to the deep freeze, and we also had a filter tube burst during a deep freeze.
However, today I was finally thinking back to the winter. One night I woke up and glanced out the window to realize that our motion detector flood lights were on. They shine right on the ponds and front yard. Well I looked out the window and on a fence rail, waist high, next to the pond, sat a large brown owl. It looked right up to me and flew away. It was right in front of the top pond.
So my question is how common is it that owls start feeding on pond fish? Because the water lily's aren't blooming in that pond, there is very little coverage. Where as the bottom pond has rock caves and other plants. Also what can I do about owls? Are there any kind of deterrents? Or should I just add in different kinds of plants?
Thank you ahead of time for any advice!