Wild life

The garden has been sadly neglected this year and till yesterday the wildlife pond resembled a primeval swamp; that's if you could see it through the thicket of buttercups, campion and grass.  Action was required and I spent a happy couple of hours in the dappled sunlight yanking handfuls of vegetation off the bank and then trawling some of the blanket weed from the pond into a trug.

The pond has been there for a few years and we have been waiting with baited breath for evidence of something more than water beetles, water fleas and water hoglouse. This year we wouldn't have noticed if the Loch Ness monster had moved in, till some of the mess was sorted.

I cleared a third of the pond and was just about to tip the excess water back in when a wriggle at the side caught my eye - a common newt! Peered at him for a while and released him back into the water before upending the weed to let the rest of the minibeasts escape.

We went back in the evening to see what we could spot. TWO newts (or one moving about an awful lot) and then - one beady eye, and then another. Frog! It's a proper wildlife pond now.