Summer is when Lake Big Fish is most active. This is when the urban wildlife lays claim to the pond. Every summer there is a colony of water spiders that builds webs across the pond every night; during the day they hide among the plants. I've counted as many as 6 spiders building webs in a single evening.
Dragonflies and damsel flies
found the pond the during the
first summer. I think they must send out scouts looking
for unclaimed territory!
They've been back every year since.
It took a few years for them to find me, but the giant red dragonflies
(we used to call them
darning needles
when I was growing up back in Kentucky)
have claimed the pond as their territory.
There only seems to be one male around at a time;
he ignores the small blue and green dragonflies
but chases away other giant red males.
Of course, the fish are still there, but thanks to the explosive plant growth, they can be hard to find. On really hot days, and there are a lot of those in Texas in the summer, the goldfish spend their time under the plant cover and only come out into the open water when there is something interesting to eat.
Pond plants
Instead of an external filter, the pond and tub gardens are heavily planted.
In the main pond,
there is a
pink Fabiola,
two white lilies (one is a narrow petaled cultivar
and the other a
broad petaled cultivar),
several baskets of pickerl rush,
some lizard tail,
a sagitarius,
and several other plants of dubious geneology.
The anacharis and cabomba require constant thinning during the summer.
Some of the excess goes to my large aquarium (the cichlids devour the
anacharis) but mosst of it goes straight to the composter.
Cattails proved to be too invasive in the main pond, so they were
removed when the pond was rebuilt in 1999.
But since I like cattails, I put some of them in a large plastic tub
with some bladderwort.
The other tubs contain a
minature pink water lily
and a yellow
Charlene Strawn
along with some common duckweed, azolla and more bladderwort.
All of the tubs have snails and mosquito fish as well, although I
expect the cattails to eventually crowd out even the fish!
Using a bog as a filter
The bog area of the main pond is full of Louisiana Iris, more lizard tail, and several bog hibiscus, also known as marsh mallow. The hibiscus are actually volunteers grown from seeds dropped by a plant that I bought at the Heard Museum native plant sale one year. The bog itself ranges from 6 to 18 inches in depth and is filled with pea gravel. Buried in the deepest part of the bog is an upside-down clay flower pot. Water is pumped in at the top of the pot (actually the drainage hole in the bottom of the pot) and rises through the pea gravel and plants before flowing out into the main pond. Particulate matter is trapped by the gravel, which also serves as the substrate for a biological filter.
Pond Evolution
Lake Big Fish has changed dramatically over the years. From a rather barren hole full of water it has evolved into a minature jungle that requires constant pruning (sometimes with a chainsaw) to prevent it from becoming an overgrown, plant-choked, ecological disaster. Plants die or are removed and replaced by other, different, plants. The pond is enlarged by the addition of a bog area (used for filtration). Fish spawn, grow, die and are replaced by new fish. The waterfall is rebuilt on a regular basis, and the entire pond was rebuilt in February 1999. Here are some pictures to give you an idea of how the pond has changed over the years.
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1995
A lot of little fish and some plants. This was before I knew about illegal water plants (if you look carefully, you can see Water Hyacinth and Salvia) |
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1996
The cattails are starting to take over. Moonflowers cover the western fence. The waterfall is still a train tunnel. |
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1999
Morning glories crawled from the arbor across the pond. It's a jungle pond! |
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Here's the list of butterflies that visit Lake Big Fish. I've even got pictures of some of them!
Want to find out more about butterflies? Visit these pages ...
The Butterfly Website - Lots of information about butterflies. Pam Mikula, the Web Ecologist, will answer your questions.
I never saw a single bee in my yard until I landscaped as a habitat.
Now I have
bumblebees, honey bees and mason bees.
The bumblebees adore the
partridge pea in the front yard.
Every morning the partridge peas are covered with big yellow flowers
and hundreds of bumblebees!
The bumblebees also compete with the hummingbirds for the honeysuckle and
trumpet vines in the arbor.
They also can be found at the edge of the pond or
on lily pads, getting a sip of water.
I even had to fish one out of the pond (I found her climbing out
from under a lily pad; I have no idea how she got in the water
in the first place).
Soaking wet bumblebees are almost as funny looking as soaking wet cats!
The honey bees and mason bees seem to prefer the salvinia and sunflowers. They also like the mint, particularly the catmint. All of the bees like the sand willow and the crepe myrtle. And ever since I seeded the back yard with Dutch white clover, going barefoot is not an option! Watch out for the honeybees in the grass!
Summer means birds! Lake Big Fish and the surrounding garden are designed to provide native foods for birds as well as insects. There are sunflowers, pyrocanthia, nandines and other seed-bearing plants. These attract a host of birds. Some of the ones I've been able to identify are listed below.
Blue Jays 
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I never could figure out why the water level
in the tub gardens in the front yard
was always low.
I mean, these are plastic tubs and they don't leak.
Then one day I happened to glance out the window and I saw about
a dozen birds taking baths in the tubs!
The smaller birds hop out onto the lily pads, which sink just enough
under the birds' weight to let them get wet without drowning.
The jays were sitting on the edge of the pots (which are about
an inch below the water line) to take their baths.
And the bladderwort is so thick in the tub with the cattails that
the mockingbirds were sitting on top of it.
It only took an hour for the birds to lower the water level in
one of the big tubs by about one inch.
There are traditional bird baths in both the front and back yards, but
I guess those birds just like to live a little dangerously.
They also prefer the dogs' water bowl to their own bird baths!
Even though it's summer, I still feed the birds. I just reduce the amount of seed that I put out; I only use one of the tube feeders and the tray in the back yard. And I don't even fill those every day. There is a peanut feeder and a suet feeder hanging in the crepe myrtle next to the front door that I always keep filled. At first only the jays and mockingbird were interested in the peanuts, but now the smaller birds and even the cardinals are there every day. I also put cracked sunflower seeds in a small feeder just outside the front window. The birds don't seem to mind that the cats sit in that window and watch them intently. In fact, the only thing the cats watch more intently is their food bowls!
Daisy |
Queen Cleone |
Desert Willow |
Orange Canna |
Moonflower |
Morning Glory |
Marigolds |
