"Wildlife" pond, 2nd year - ropes/twine for stopping wildfowl.

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Some photos of our pond in it's 2nd year this Spring. After a Winter of horrendous rainfall, it's full and doing incredibly well. We planted various native species last Summer - various plants have "appeared" in the mean time. It's a liner pond with a fleece + 6" of clay on top (+ a bit of gravel). I was tempted to photoshop out the ropes/twine....but left them in because they are actually quite interesting. We live opposite a flood plane which connects to the River Thames in Oxfordshire - apparently, ancient long boats used to shore up almost exactly in front of our house millennia ago! As a result, ducks and geese are regular visitors (and started to make the pond their home before we even finished it). I read on a website (I think from the US) that by fixing ropes across the pond (or coloured string), this "spooks" the wildfowl (they can't easily land or take off from the pond). It really does work! We do have a handful of Mallard ducks who have worked out how to land vertically (or land on the grass next to the pond and try to gain entrance to it) but generally speaking, it does seem to have put them off. We've put twine around the pond too, and they don't seem to be able to step over it. Given the price of pond plants, lilies etc. this has resulted in a great sigh of relief as we have heard horror stories of people spending thousands of pounds only to have watched geese decimate their creations......We did sadly have to stop one poor duck from nesting right where we were about to start planting - nature is very impatient!

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j.w

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Looks so pretty and at least you don't have to worry about the heron getting any fish since you don't have any in there. I myself w/a pond that big w/o fish would love for the ducks to and birds to visit but I guess you say they will destroy all your plants. To keep skeeters away I would throw in some Gambusia or some small other hardy little ones to keep them at bay.
 
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We'll let the ducks in eventually j.w. - once the pond is fully established - I'm not sure what we're going to do about the Canada geese though....
 

addy1

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That is so beautiful! I can understand keeping them out, they do love to munch on plants. The geese move in places around here, once they find it, it becomes their home if they like the digs............
 

Troutredds

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You have a wonderful property there, alfvenwave. It's a beautiful, pastoral setting. (y)
 

Mmathis

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What a lovely setting, and the history of the area makes it even more special! I think that the way you have the string spread out looks natural [well, as natural as it can be to have stuff strung across your pond], and doesn't take away from the "picture" at all, and if it's helping, that's even better.
 
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What a lovely setting, and the history of the area makes it even more special! I think that the way you have the string spread out looks natural [well, as natural as it can be to have stuff strung across your pond], and doesn't take away from the "picture" at all, and if it's helping, that's even better.
I would have loved to see a picture of this-I too have turtles,this is giving me some ideas.
 

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