April - tadpoles and sticks

I’m back at the pond for a very brief visit and find lots more tadpoles - hurrah! The sun warming the water seems to have brought them out of wherever they were lurking on my visit a couple of weeks ago. They’re still such tiny fragile emerging lives; I watch them wriggling through their watery world, glimpse them hanging motionless amongst decaying vegetation.

The water level in the pond and the circumference covered by water has significantly reduced; it’s now just a few inches deep, although the mud is still pretty gloopy, sucking hard at my boots as I wade through the water. I press my stick down into the depth - now about 10 inches.

The circumference of the water covering the pond is about 3ft less than a month ago; a small causeway is opening up between the two trees in the centre. I walk around the pond pushing in sticks to mark where water meets exposed mud - something I should have done this on my first visit at the beginning of the project. Does this happen every year? I’ll measure it on my next, and subsequent visits over the next few months, and see if the water recedes further.

The coil of paper I left hidden at the base of the tree is slowly being covered in decaying plants; the one hanging in the tree is still there, and not much has happened to it.