SITE 155 BRICKYARD FARM POND AND PLANTATION

There is no public access to this site.

Date: 26th March 2003

There are two ponds at this farm, this is the larger one and details have been completed as Pond 10 in this survey.

The area surrounding the pond has been planted up with a mixture of small trees but these have been a little neglected and would do much better with some care. Watering young trees is always a problem when they are away from habitation and the grass grows right up to the stems and the young roots struggle to make it. There is evidence of a pheasant feeding station and a Larsen Trap.

There are good shallow muddy banks to the pond, plenty of bankside vegetation, but there are fish. I did find frogspawn in two places when I visited a few days later. There is a small island being investigated by two Canada Geese.

As always, a further visit is needed to see what will emerge as flora in this area is undisturbed by the cattle.

There is an Oak Tree 135 at one end of the plantation with a girth of 3.3 metres.

1^st October 2003

Chris Hills from the Leicestershire Wildlife Trust joined me on this visit to check out Brickpit Pond (Pond11 Site 156) and we decided to check this out at the same time.

The water level had dropped a lot from my previous visit but it had exposed lovely muddy, gently sloping margins perfect for waders. Again, there is good bankside vegetation but nothing in the water, which looked very muddy. There were Mallard present.

Chris commented that it was good to see a farmer fencing off such a large area around the pond to keep out the cattle. It should be noted that this is an electric fence, which is live.

This pond is two years old and feeds into a pond in the next field close to Swithland Reservoir (Pond 9 Site 132 in this survey). Rodney says that it has a leak which will be investigated when time permits but he is not sure when as it is being done by someone from Gaddesby.

Rodney says that he has seen Snipe and Green Sandpiper on the muddy margins. He introduced the Mallard. Canada Geese nested on the small island and raised 12 goslings. Although the water was very murky Rodney says that he has not introduced Carp, just Rudd and Tench.

I have ongoing permission to visit the site so I will be checking out the waders this autumn and winter.

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