The pond was still brown and unhealthy-looking this morning, so we pumped out half of the water and replaced with fresh rainwater from the butt.
I also reached down and pulled out a pile of leaves and gunk from the bottom, carefully saving any tadpoles that had been hiding in it. This disturbed the sediment, making the situation worse temporarily. But looking again after an hour, the results were good. In the clips below you can see the immediate results and, in the still shots below those, you can see the pond looking beautifully clear in the evening sun. I can see right to the bottom again and the tadpoles seem fine.
While taking video of the seemingly cheerful hoardes, I also captured some clips of mayflys, now sub-imagos (or duns). I think what I’ve captured is the mayfly drying its wings, ready to fly for the first and last time to mate and then die. A very brief life as an adult insect.
The information on mayflies is from The Tweed Foundation website
Update on weirdpole… In post 6, I shared a clip of a tadpole with a strange spiral marking on its underside. Having noticed this on lots of the tadpoles recently, as they have been coming to the surface and gulping air with their underside up, I investigated and found this useful YouTube video which explains the strange markings. They aren’t marking at all in fact: they are the tadpole’s intestines showing through the transparent outer skin. So weirdpole is not alone and not weird. See tadpole first legs (and intestines) for more details.
FROG BLOG 