HeronS!

[GaryMoz]

I woke up this morning and spotted two herons in the playing field adjacent to my house, I presume this could be a mating pair?

Although in this picture the second one does look less like a heron, I'm pretty sure it was. There was no indication they had visited my pond, but just in case I will continue with the build of the Heron(S) Wall, A light weight fence I can place around the edge of the pond.

Edit: fun? fact a group of herons is a called a siege, quite appropriate

 

[GaryMoz]

And now we have duck who is hard scare away, yells, balls thrown and chased by a dog and still comes right back.


Fish are now just sat at bottom of pond and will not come up even for food.


So heron wall now needs to become a heron(s) and duck barrier

 

[GBBUDD]

Edit: fun? fact a group of herons is a called a siege, quite appropriate

Amazing how a few miles can make people go batty, two herons and you guys call it a siege, appropriate!

 

[Lisak1]

A lightweight fence around the edge of your pond won't stop a heron OR a duck. Ducks don't need to walk in and herons won't mind stepping right over.

 

[GaryMoz]

A lightweight fence around the edge of your pond won't stop a heron OR a duck. Ducks don't need to walk in and herons won't mind stepping right over.

Ducks currently do walk in, they can't fly in as I have string lights and line over the pond.

I was going to make the fence around the pond two feet high and put it on the edge so the herons can't step over it, I need to make the bases sturdy and heavy so herons can not knock it over.

I'm just added multiple deterrents and hoping they will be enough to put the herons off. The pond is deep 4.5' with vertical sides, It's close to house 10' away, air pumps break the surface up, I even a have plastic decoy, for what good it will do.

The biggest deterrent is yet to come, our garden is being fenced off, which means we can release the hound , he's a French water dog, breed to hunt birds (but he doesn't like water)

 

[addy1]

All the above posts are being removed. NO politics please. Everybody has their opinion, we don't and won't ever agree.

 

[GBBUDD]

HELL IF YOU WANT ULTIMATE MAKE IT AN ELECTRIC FENCE , THOUGH I DON'T THINK ID WANT TO BE WET AND GRAB IT MYSELF BUTTTT IT WILL KEEP THE BIRDS FROM BEING A PROBLEM

 

[GaryMoz]

HELL IF YOU WANT ULTIMATE MAKE IT AN ELECTRIC FENCE , THOUGH I DON'T THINK ID WANT TO BE WET AND GRAB IT MYSELF BUTTTT IT WILL KEEP THE BIRDS FROM BEING A PROBLEM

There is a company that sells electric pond heron fences.


We have seen the heron recently, but it hasn't come close to pond. I have security camera on pond, I hope the motion detection picks up the heron it comes close and siren will scare it away.

I think the fish were spooked by the duck but we have managed to chase that away

 

[Tula]

All the above posts are being removed. NO politics please. Everybody has their opinion, we don't and won't ever agree.

Thank you @addy1 .

 

[chibae]

Amazing how a few miles can make people go batty, two herons and you guys call it a siege, appropriate!

Well two crows is an attempted murder.

 

[GaryMoz]

The next stage of Heron defence is place, the fishing line fence around the edge of the pond.

Since we put the decoy heron in, we haven't seen any come close, although they have landed in the far side of the field, but came no closer.

So we have the following deterrents:

• The decoy
• The edge fence
• Lights and line overhead
• Close to the house
• Vertical sided pond 1400mm deep
• And a dog named Walter

We currently also have green water so the herons can't see the fish. We did have bad blanket weed, but as that died away the water turned green. I hope the bog does it job and clears it out. The water was clear upto when the blanket weed thinning out. I did do quite a lot of blanket weed removal.

Anyway I hope that's enough to deter the herons, ducks and cats.

 

[GBBUDD]

Looking good.
odd... usually it's the green water then the blanket weed, but then again your on the other side of the pond and drive on the wrong side of the road so i guess it is what it is

I used a 2" golf net to prevent access from the back of the pond doing even a larger weave like a 2 foot by two foot hanging from the light supports . it made my area more like a court yard.

she's coming along nicely , how many fish do you hav ein there and there size , the disadvantage to the bog is it takes time to mature the organisums and micro need to find your pond. i find catapillars in the submerged gravel as well as worms , salamaders, etc like bacteria it takes time to establish. one possibility is to grab some lily or even an old log from a local pond and that is one way to seed the pond but you may get some bad like parasites you never know i did seed the pond

 

[GaryMoz]

I was a little surprised when the green water came, we have had a lot of blue sky and a bit of warmth, which resulted in the blanket weed, but the pond kept quite clear. The blanket weed was causing problems with my filter, so I did a lot of clearing out over a few days, this meant there was a lot of matter floating around the water, whether this triggered the green water or not I don't know.

The pond also has a high Ph around 9, but other values seem good.


I have 10 Koi, all quite small 12" - 4" and 40 goldfish with majority below 6", as the gold fish grow I will remove them.

Hopefully the water will clear and I can keep a eye out for parasites

 

[GBBUDD]

the abundance of fish could be the cause as you bog is still new it can take up to three years to find the Ballance but i am surprised it is happening with an rdf inline.

was there any other chances type of food? medications? change in maintenance.? nine is high im curious what your kh is because by adding baking soda it should never go above 8.3

 

[sissy]

here we are dealing with wild tom turkey mating season . Gosh are they a pain ./But at leat they don't eat fish . The fighting amongst them is the worst in the early morning . I think every one gets a little green water and then foam from mating . Geeze animals can be a pain . The cows on the farm noisy yelling all night and then the horses screaming for a mate . Then you get bucks fighting in the yard .