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Bye bye little dudes :'(
We woke up yesterday morning to find that overnight our little pond had been visited by a mystery predator who had taken all three of our fish. Our little dudes have been with us for eight years and they were like part of the family.
We are completely stumped as to what did it, our best guess is a heron because they tend to hunt at dawn. We've never seen a heron over our house, but we have Lightwater Lakes a mile down the road so there's no saying there aren't some there.
In their pond, our fish had a big, hollow cave-like structure where they could go an hide when they needed/wanted to. The entrances to the 'cave' were only 3-4 inches high and were mostly underwater so nothing but our fish could realistically get in there. So how this mystery predator could get hold of all three baffles us.
But the fact is, they did.
I'm sitting outside in the garden typing this looking at our empty pond. You wouldn't think you could get attached to fish, but we did.
And I miss them :(
We are completely stumped as to what did it, our best guess is a heron because they tend to hunt at dawn. We've never seen a heron over our house, but we have Lightwater Lakes a mile down the road so there's no saying there aren't some there.
In their pond, our fish had a big, hollow cave-like structure where they could go an hide when they needed/wanted to. The entrances to the 'cave' were only 3-4 inches high and were mostly underwater so nothing but our fish could realistically get in there. So how this mystery predator could get hold of all three baffles us.
But the fact is, they did.
I'm sitting outside in the garden typing this looking at our empty pond. You wouldn't think you could get attached to fish, but we did.
And I miss them :(
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Could you get a couple of turtles for the pond? They are very friendly once they get used to you and aren't a favorite food of herons. At least I wouldn't think they'd be.
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We're going to look at restocking the pond in the spring, and use this time as a chance to drain it and clean it out, and also, we don't want to put young, vulnerable fish in there which will have to survive a winter within a few months. Turtles might be a nice addition, we'll have to think about in the spring!
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It could have been a heron or a feral cat. If your pond is big enough for the heron to stand in & make a tent over it with its wings, that's probably how your poor babies went. *has watched herons hunt while on nature walks* If it's smaller, then possible a feral cat passing through discovered an "all you can eat sushi bar." We have a feral cat that I've caught stalking the birds at my backyard feeders. Luckily all I need to do it go out the back door & it takes off. And if it's actually someone's pet (not really sure as I've seen it down the block & sometimes around it when on a walk, then again it looks well fed...) then they need to be smacked upside the head for letting the cat roam as it's only a matter of time before the poor thing gets run over by a car.
If you restock your pond, maybe some floating water plants, like duck weed so the fishies can hide under it, or some sort of mesh over it to keep out unwanted visitors? I've always wanted a pond with fish in it, but aside from cats, I'd have to worry about raccoons helping themselves to my fishies. :(
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YAY!! Good! I hope you can find something to keep the fish safe! :D
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