Saturday 12 January 2019

A pond across the pond

We have just returned from the small island of Vieques which lies off the east coast of Puerto Rico. Here Steve was sharing knowledge gained from the uk in building a pond on the grounds of a small holding and guest house. The site was destroyed by the hurricanes last year and is being rebuilt but this is the first time that they have had a pond. 
We stayed in a tent with a fantastic view over jungle to the sea. The pond required levelling (not easy as it was on a hill!), lining and landscaping with suitable tropical plants  such as bromeliads. In the tropics you need to be careful because ponds breed mosquitoes so we needed to find fish to eat the mosquito larvae
Luckily we found some native fish in another pond nearby and caught some with fish traps made from  old bottles. Everyone gathered round for the releasing of the fish. Dragonflies, water beetles and other wildlife arrived on their own. We hope that the pond will be a source of interest for humans and wildlife for years to come.

2 comments:

  1. The pond sounds and looks great. I bet there will lots of natural visitors, including humans!
    Well done for all your efforts 👍 xx

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  2. That’s a big pond! No easy task. Makes my back ache just thinking about it.

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