Ponds and Water Life
Biography Cats Free Food Genealogy Photographs Wild Life Forest of Dean pet-friendly holiday cottage to let

Pond at Map Ref 515 627

This is without much doubt the finest of all the coprolite pits: it is open all way round, so easy of access from all sides - and a footpath runs alongside it on the west side.

The long axis of the pit lies approximately NW-SE, so the north-east side is in the sun most of the day. The pit is long, quite wide and has a shallow margin on the of the main pit. The north west edge of this shallow margin is a reed bed. However, the adjacent land supports grazing cattle, so the shallow edge of the red bed is heavily browsed and supports a water-meadow type flora, where shallow-water loving marsh plants grow. Presumably also because of this browsing removing many of the more vigorous plants, many of the weaker plants are growing under conditions where they do not normally survive, so they show unusual submerged forms of what are normally thought to be marsh plants. This makes the site of special botanical interest!

The south end of this side is fenced off so unbrowsed, affording an opportunity to compare browsed water environment with unbrowsed.

To the north west, the pit drains through a 'stream' which, rather, is a very overgrown bog, with lots of interesting flora. At the north end of this boggy stream are a couple of shallow boggy areas, overgrown and grazed by cows, so there is little terrestrial overgrowth and the water features are all easily accessible, although somewhat boggy in places.

To the east is an open, wooded area with cow and rabbit-grazed sward, so the area is a delightful picnic place. In fact it's one of those 'special' places, well worth visiting. Take the children with a picnic for an unforgettable day out!

Species

Visits to the pond on 15th June 2003 and 12th July 2003 revealed a wealth of water flora and fauna, including:

• Plants. This is only a partial listing: the pit would make a very good study for botanical students and would surely repay careful study. The habitat is extremely diverse and there is a wealth of different species.
  • Blue water-speedwell - Veronica anagallis-aquatica
  • Pink water-speedwell - Veronica catenata
    This proved difficult to identify: I did not properly identify it until some I took to introduce to our garden pond started flowering in early August. In the pit it is growing in water about 60cm deep, so it shows an unusual immerse form which is pale purple-green and has a weak stem, as if a true water plant. Normally this is a creeping marsh plant but here it seems to be creeping vertically in the water!

    Veronica anagallis-aquatica and Veronica catenata also tend to hybridise!

  • Bog Pondweed - Potamageton polygonifolius(?)
    Plant not identified, but there are lots of floating leaves visible.
  • Fringed water lily - Nymphoides peltata
  • Lesser Spearwort - Ranunculus flammula
  • water plantain - Badellia ranunculoides
  • Mash Pennywort - Hydrocotyle vulgaris
    Pennywort here is growing not only as a marsh plant, but also as a water plant, in about 40 cm of water!
  • Mare's tail - Hippuris vulgaris
  • Marsh bedstraw - Galium palustre
  • Purple loosestrife - Lythrum salicaria
  • Starwort - Calitriche sp.
  • Stonewort - Chara Fragilis
    This is interesting: it's actually an algae (so you won't find it in most wild plant books!), but it thrives in hard water, and is often encrusted with chalk, so is hard and fragile. In this pit, chara is pretty much the dominant submerged plant. Chara is useful in the aquarium as a spawning medium. There are several Chara species: I'm guessing this was fragilis as the other similar one (chara foetida) has a bad smell!
  • Water mint - Mentha aquatica
  • Water plantain - Alisma plantago-aquatica
    Probably other plantains as well!
  • Water violet - Hottonia palustris
    grows and flowers in profusion here. My books say it likes soft water: clearly the hottonia here hasn't read these books!
  • Watercress Rorippa nasturtium-aquaticum
  • White water lily - Nymphaea alba
  • Yellow Loosestrife - Lysimachia vulgaris
• Animals
  • Blue damselfly
  • Frog - Rana temporaria
  • Pike - Esox lucius
  • Stickleback - Gasterosteus aculeatus
  • Rudd (probably) - Scardinius erythrophthalamus
    I caught no fish, so am guessing these are rudd!
  • Great pond snail - Limnaea stagnalis

The drain to the north contains much grass, Chara fragilis, various starworts, water forget-me-not, various aquatic ranunculus species. At one stage a pike splashed. In the bogs to the north abound water violet and water crowfoot.

Top of page
Document URI: www.torrens.org.uk /NatHist/PAWL/scqf/513628.html
Last modified: Wed, 26 Dec 2007 19:19:34 GMT
Page first published 15th June 2003
Page written and © by Richard Torrens