In message , Keith Kent
writes
i made a shallow wildlife pond just before christmas gone,it has
gravel/pebbles.I am amazed at how wildlife has sprung from what seems
nowhere!Frogs/toads appeared,lots of pond snails,pond skates?,and tiny knat
looking things swimming about?And to my surprise whilst adding some plants
today spotted a newt!
Can you tell i am happy about this.
I find it amazing how a new pond can have such interest in such a short
period of time.

Every garden should have one!
The pond skater will be the common pond skater, Gerris lacustris. I
don't know what the tiny gnat like things are, possibly mosquito larvae
but they are not really swimmers - see if you can spot something on
Buglife http://www.buglife.org.uk/ or a similar site.

A really good resource for garden wildlife ponds is
http://www.english-nature.org.uk/pub...ardenPonds.pdf
(775Kb)
--
Robert