In message
Sacha wrote:

On 2011-08-27 14:46:30 +0100, said:

We have a small pond which until recently had seven goldfish in
it, we have this year in particular built it up with plants to add
coverage and added a brick dry wall edging to replace the old cane
wall we originally had and added lilies which covers two thirds of
the pond which is about 2 feet deep at one end and about eighteen
inches at the other. We have also erected two pergolas, one
directly over the pond which has fine netting over the top to
discourage the odd heron etc and the other as a seating area.

We had until a few days ago seven goldfish, we only now have two
left, I had made a cover over the pond which was plastic netting
attached to garden cane to protect the fish but this year because
of the extra coverage of plants I removed the cover (it won't fit
now anyway due to the overgrown plants) but there had been
sufficient cover to protect them, or so I thought, the linked
photo's below will show very little flight path for a heron or
even a seagull to land and takeoff but we still lost five fish
over two days.

Any idea what might have nabbed the fish, or do you think it
possible for a flying predator to take the fish as there may not
have been sufficient coverage after all?

http://stephen.hull.mediacave.co.uk/example/pond1.jpg
http://stephen.hull.mediacave.co.uk/example/pond2.jpg
http://stephen.hull.mediacave.co.uk/example/pond3.jpg
http://stephen.hull.mediacave.co.uk/example/pond4.jpg

Stephen.

A heron landed on top of a hedge here once, hopped down and strolled up
to the pond. I say 'once' as in 'once that we saw'. A heron could
easily land near your pond. We do find that when a heron has been near
the pond the fish will often 'disappear' into the plants and depths for
a day or so.

A neighbour said he lost his fish (a while ago now) due to a heron
but his pond is left wide open with absolutely no coverage.
Our two remaining fish are traumatised lurking at the bottom of
the pond.

Stephen.




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