Creating ponds for wildlife

I don't have access to saltwater tidepools, so in my world the most fascinating microenvironment is that of a freshwater pond.  I was therefore delighted to read an article about a fellow who is turning his earthmoving skills into creating ponds de novo on the English countryside.

Britain has lost at least 400,000 ponds over the past century, according to the Freshwater Habitats Trust. A similar number remain but many are overgrown, degraded or affected by nutrient pollution.

“Everyone realises we’re in a sorry state with freshwater and it needs to be addressed,” says Hancox, of Creative Wetlands, a contractor who has dug scores of new ponds for charities and rewilding projects across Britain.

Hancox acquired his skills – the excavator “becomes an extension of yourself, it just flows,” he says – digging landfill sites and golf courses for his family’s groundworks company. “My original job was a shaper on golf courses. We travelled all over, to Portugal, Germany, Belgium, building bunkers and drainage – everything really that wasn’t good for wildlife. I’ve always had a massive interest in wildlife, so we’ve got to the stage now where we want to put something back.”

At Heal Somerset, a 185-hectare (460 acre) former dairy farm being turned over to nature by the charity Heal Rewilding, Hancox is digging four new ponds, including one double-bowled pond 30 metres in diameter.

The ponds are specifically for great-crested newts, which have been found in low numbers on the farm but have no suitable ponds in which to breed. Usually within a year of being created the ponds fill with aquatic life, including damselflies and dragonflies, and provide food and shelter for birds, from moorhens to house martins, who feed on the insects and use the pond-side mud to build nests...

Crucially, these new ponds are not connected to any river system, which can wash nutrient-rich or polluted water into them. Instead, they are charged by clean rainwater or clean groundwater, enabling more delicate aquatic plants to thrive.

Kudos to this fellow for shifting from creating golf courses to creating wildlife ponds.  And kudos to the farm family that has hired him to do the work.  Reminds me of the people who install wildlife guzzlers in the desert.