SEEDING SUCCESS
and improve the fortunes of the ponds that remain. Other organisations are focusing their efforts more specifically on recovering lost farmland ponds.
In recent years, scientists at University College London (UCL) have been restoring farmland ponds using traditional management involving scrub and the removal of years’ worth of mud. The news is good. Once restored and opened up to the light, many farmland ponds recolonise quickly with plants and animals, sometimes returning to their former glory in mere months. The results are staggering.
Farmland ponds in Norfolk, restored over the past few years by UCL and partners, harbour many times the number of plant and invertebrate species of non-restored, overgrown ponds. Margins around the ponds have twice the abundance of pollinators, such as bees and hoverflies.
Compared to overgrown, shaded-out ponds, healthy ponds host huge numbers of emerging insects; these in turn attract twice as many bird species to them. Carl Sayer of UCL’s Pond Restoration Research Group describes these ponds as “insect chimneys” – a phrase that sums up perfectly the biological productivity of a good pond.
In many cases, Carl and his colleagues were amazed by how quickly pond-plant communities re-established themselves. Even after 150 years of a pond being buried under an arable field, seeds from pond plants were capable of germination after restoration took place. Carl calls these ‘ghost ponds’. “It’s as though the ponds have been buried alive and remain alive. The fields are full of ghosts that can be revived if we want them back,” he says.
Today, Carl’s work in Norfolk is inspiring projects in other parts of the country. “For us, it’s so satisfying seeing wildlife move in, and so quickly,” says Dr Hannah Robson, science and policy manager at the Wildfowl and Wetlands Trust (WWT). “That a thick patch of scrub, barely visible as a pond, can be turned into something that looks so nice, in so little time. It makes such a difference.”
In the last year or so WWT has teamed up with UCL and the Farming and Wildlife Advisory Group South West (FWAG) to work with farmers, helping them restore Gloucestershire’s forgotten farmland ponds.
“FWAG organised some pond events and I was really impressed about how they had really increased the wildlife – the insects especially,” says Gloucestershire farmer John Chamberlayne, standing rather proudly next to his newly restored pond. “There are about four or five ponds in the place that we want to do in time, and that will leave a bit of a legacy for the future, hopefully.”
Chamberlayne tells of how he used to chase eels in the pond when it belonged to his father. He talks of insects and the birds he loves. His pond looks open. Clean. Ready to be colonised. It reminds me of the old farmland pond that I knew near the M1, a pond lost to the sands (or rather, leaf-litters) of time. The memories.
The encounters. The formative wildlife experiences that all pond-lovers share. A seedbank of a different kind.
Through projects like these, we have discovered that many historical farmland ponds can be resurrected. Restored, perhaps faster and with more immediate success than any other habitat on Earth. The seeds are still there. They just need light; a scraping back of the litters of time; clean, unpolluted water; fruitful partnerships between wildlife conservation organisations and the farming community.
There were once spectacular creatures living on our farms and in our countryside. There can be again. The pond I remember from my childhood is just sleeping. It’s a ghost. Gone, but maybe not forever. Hope, it springs again.
Jules Howard
Learn how to make your own wildlife pond with our guide to creating a freshwater habitat in your garden.