How about showing us a few pics of the wildlife or not so wild life that is drawn in to your ponds. I'll start off with my rather boring Frog pics. There is one up on the ledge and one in the water.
What lives in or near your Pond
Nothing boring about that picture.. I wish something could be drawn to my little pond but it is an above ground stock tank.... too high.
Tammie
I can't get pictures as thay move too quick, but we have snakes. Lots and lots of small snakes. Eastern Garter and a little plain brown one I've forgotten the name of. Plus we have the usual spring toads by the hoards. They are laying eggs at this very minute.
Tammie, I also have what I call a box pond that sits up on the patio. Every once in awhile we would get a small frog in it but they didn't last long.
Here is a different type of wildlife that is drawn to my pond and the creatures in it.
I had a great shot of this little guy drinking from the pond. I just can't find it but this was taken just after he was done. This was taken about 2 years ago.
That's my Grandson JR in the other picture taken last summer. He just loves the snails in my pond. Takes them out of the pond bottom and put them up in the top birdbath to play and inspect them.
Holly,
I love that pic, I have a bullfrog that eats earthworms from my hand! What are the lilies with the little pads that you have? Do you have any extra that you would like to trade? I have lots of plants and many that aren't listed on my exchange page if you are looking for anything in particular, such as Variegated Siberian Bugloss Jack Frost.
Kathy
hollyanns. love your frogs..they are HUGE! What are you feeding them... I am a frog lover to and get many at my backyard pond.
This is a recent visitor.he would not turn around for his picture..little
shy I guess.
your grandson is darling too!
Tammie,
Our garden center that sells water garden and pond supplies uses stock tanks to keep their water plants in, and every spring there a loads of tadpoles in them, so the toads and frogs do get into them despite them being high off the ground. Maybe they just haven't discovered yours yet.
Kathy
What a great thread! I am loving all these pics. Here are some of our frogs and fish:
Our pond is small…but these frogs are even smaller ;-). This parrot feather plant is a really hot frog party spot at night.
Kathy, Thank you for the offer but I'm not ready to trade pond plants yet. Right now I have two small ponds (more like water features) and a third one is almost finished. This one is a birdbath with a 3ft deep 5ft wide well. I also have a box pond which is about 4ft wide and 6 ft long it's basically a lined wood box that sits up on our patio. The third one almost finished is an antique bath tub. We have been planning to put in a much larger pond for sometime now and we may get it put in this year. Probably won't get started before July. My plants are pretty small and I have very little extra. I got a few plants given to me by a DG friend last year and I ordered several plants from the Texas waterlily co-op. I do have the yellow water iris. It's pretty aggressive and could probably get you some water willow later if you have any interest in that. The lily pads are from one of the hardy water lilies I got from the co-op I'd have to pull up the pot to see which one. Here is a picture from last spring of the whole pond. This was taken early summer by the end of the season you couldn't see the water.
This little guy makes our waterfall look huge!
Great shots Sunny, Just love the one with the parrot feather that is just a beautiful picture. This is the first year I could get any frog shots. In the past the frogs I had at the pond were so shy you couldn't get close to them at all. Last year we had a huge frog made this one look little. I kept telling my family about it and I don't think they believed me. I kept saying it's as big as a baby rabbit. Then one day my son finally saw it. Then he was telling everybody about my huge frog. LOL Ric did get me a new camera at Christmas and it has more range than my old one so that helped quite a bit but these two just aren't as timid. Yesterday I was working on a Canna bed pretty close to the pond and the one never moved when I walked by.
does the parrot feather just float on the top of the water or is it in a pot? I would love some of that.. it is so pretty. I don't even think we have frogs here.. the closest place is about 1 mile away behind the walmart.. a big messy drainage area.. I do hear frogs there but no where else.. it is too dry here. We dont' even have crickets like we used to.
Tammie
I'm jealous of all your frog pictures! We hear ours all the time, but they hide. Today we noticed loads of little polliwogs in the shallows.
Sunnyg, that parrots feather is beautiful. Wish ours looked as good.
Here's one of the egrets that visits our pond. We're trying to discourage them, because they scare our parrots and eat the gold fish.
I love your birdbath water feature HollyAnn! You’ve got a hardcore frog there…as big as a baby rabbit? Wow! Isn’t taking frog pics fun? I’d love to see some more pics of your big guys as the season goes on.
Beautiful egret shot KaperC, although they do sound like unwelcome visitors. My dad has a small pond at his house, and also has a lot of probs with egrets eating the fish. Polliwogs are an exciting development! We actually still have some in an aquarium in the living room. LOL. Do you know what kind of frogs you have in your pond? I think at least some of ours are Pacific Tree Frogs, but I’m not totally sure. Our frogs are normally pretty shy during the day. I’ve come across them a few times in the garden, but the real party happens at night (I can hear the “ribbits” as I type this). These guys are tiny, but they are LOUD! The previous pics were taken when we first released them into the pond, so don’t get too jealous since that is cheating, right? ;-). We have a completely enclosed yard and don’t live near water, so we collected frogs and tadpoles from someone’s seasonal pond at the end of March. This is all very new and exciting for me. Below is a pic of a frog headed over to the party on the parrot feather. This was taken a few nights ago.
Tammy, we have our parrot feather in a pot. It is beautiful, but a very aggressive grower, and I think it is listed as invasive in some states. Our fish and frogs both love it though, and it works well in our pond as it is a contained environment. I wonder if frogs would come into your yard if you put in a small lower water feature? Build it and they will come, right? ;-)
This message was edited Apr 19, 2008 9:25 PM
I’d never seen hummingbirds bathe before…so neat!
Fish pellets? Yummmm
We're pretty sure ours are tree frogs. We have seen them when they are very tiny, climbing around on the lily pads. Oh, I forgot, I do have a picture. We watched this guy climb a rock (a mountain for him!), swim to a lily pad, etc. Amazing how much time one can spend watching wildlife in the pond.
Hummingbirds will bathe just about anywhere there is water. I remember at our old house watering the roses one morning and saw one of the hummers bathing in the water collected in a rose. Oh, to have had a camera then!
Oh! Your frog does look like our little guys. Thank you for the confirmation. I was curious if you had the same ones down in your area. The hummer bathing on a rose must have been quite a spectacular sight. They are such characters, and I love it when they come visit.
I'm really wondering what might be living in my pond. My two sons have a habit of bring their mini bucket over and putting in my pond overnight. Usually after a day fishing at the river. The one day it was filled with crayfish that they had caught DIL makes a great Crayfish Etouffee. We put goldfish in the pond years ago and some of them are pretty good size and I see they are making baby goldfish. But some of the small fish have a definite look of something from the river. Maybe sunnys or something else. Will be fun to see what grows in there this summer.
Sunny, Thought that was some kind of tree frog. Your right for a little frog they really make a lot of noise. LOL
KaperC, That Egret is beautiful Not necessarily a welcome visitor but beautiful.
Last year we had this very friendly tree frog living in our swimming pool. He was in the pool all summer long and quite often came and swam with us. Funniest thing my grandson just loved him and was very gentle. I wonder if it will be back again this year.
The egrets are beautiful and originally we didn't mind them coming to the pond. It's a wildlife pond and we don't have expensive koi or anything. But when they fly in they are HUGE! The wingspan is enormous and our birds go into a panic and start flying into walls. Can't have that. Also, they (don't know if it's the same one) keep getting closer to the house, sauntering down the path from the upper slope, past the house and down to the pond. Cheeky buggers.
Frogs..frogs..frogs..got to love them!!
please excuse the string algea stuck on my face!
You're excused - you're too cute!
my koi doing their thing..(last summer..they are about twice as big now 6-7 inches now. )
I have enjoyed all these pictures tonight..keep them coming as our spring & summer goes on.
Great frog pics HollyAnn and BeaHive! Your pond is absolutely beautiful, BeaHive. I agree, this thread is a lot of fun, and I hope to see more pics soon.
I hope your little tree frog comes back to visit this summer HollyAnn. He is a cutie. It does sound like you have the makings of some interesting “stuff” in your pond. I am new at this pond stuff, and was recently introduced to aquatic worms (on my fingers LOL) and black fly larvae. I did a lot of handwashing that day ;-).
Cheeky egrets, indeed KaperC. How many parrots do you have?
Well, I have to get me some of that parrots feather.. it is too pretty. As for invasive.. no such chance here in the desert.. no natural water to be invasive into! LOL
Beautiful pictures.. I can't even get a pic of my fish.. they are all young and skitterish still. I killed my more friendly and larger fish a couple months ago when I was adding water to my pond.. forgot it and the chlorine got the fish... the larger 3 anyway .. the small ones survived. I got home to a sparkling clear pond with the hose still in it. Quickly put the chlorine neutralizer in but is was too late for my 6 inchers. Bought more.. now to get them to learn I am not anything to be afraid of.
Tammie
Here's our frog.
I used to hand feed him bugs.
Then Howa ate him.
I am very sad.
LOL. Awe. :-(
tammie..I lost my first group of fish all in one day..15 gone! I consulted a lot of different fish experts and not 1 could not come to any obvious reason. They just started dropping like flys..nothing you can do. I did later think back that on that day a new house a few doors down was being painted. It was breezy.. I think paint may have drifted into the pond and polluted it and killed my fish. I will never know for sure..but it is so sad. I had one white koi with a perfect red round circle on his side. He looked like a japanese flag.
Did not have my digital camera then..wish I had. He was beautiful!
Takes time..but you will be their mom soon...
I can't wait to have frogs!
Oh, you'll get them lol. ^_^
Looks like a good start, are those the stones you'll be using on the edge of that pond. LOL Bet that pup will have fun chasing them. I can't wait until we start putting in the larger pond but we have several other projects that must be finished before we can start digging. I can just see us now out there in the July heat digging away.
just imagine sitting beside a cool and beautiful pond though Holly!
Don't think my neighbor would appreciate me attacking the wall. Too bad.
Even if you have to dig in July, Holly, you know you'll be loving it!
This pond has been a very, very long time in the coming. We needed to build the addition to the house and the wrap around patio before we could put in the pond. Both those things were completed about 18 years ago. Then just about the time we decided it was time to start the pond the ground started to sink. Turns out that the man that developed the land before I bought it more than 30 years ago buried trees, branches and brush then covered them over with dirt and they started to break down and decompose and the ground started sinking. We have been waiting for years for it to finish and stop. A couple of years ago we dug a test pit and it looked like it was pretty much finished and there has been no more sink-age in the last several years. The good news is we now have a good size natural depression right where we were planing the pond so we have less digging to do. Actually that's why I have the box pond on the patio. Ric made it for me so I would have something while I waited till the big pond could be put in.
You are a patient being. Keep us posted on the progress!
Sunnyg, we have three parrots: small, medium, and BIG. Or, to put it another way: small, medium, and LOUD. :-)
I'm surprised the screams don't scare the egret away, but we now have a little sprinkler in the pond and the water scarecrow should arrive any day. Perhaps those will help.
a little snow today...cold & dreary outside. koi in their castle and no frogs to be seen .
