Success from our temporary pond: Urban Nature Project

Our new gardens will be a biologically diverse hot spot for urban nature in the heart of London. One of the main features of our gardens has been the wildlife pond, which has supported a diverse range of wildlife from moorhens, aquatic plants and an important assemblage of dragonflies and damselflies.

As part of the Urban Nature Project, we’re removing the old pond liner which was at the end of its lifespan and taking the opportunity to expand the pond area so it can be home to even more urban wildlife for years to come.

How our pond looked before we started work to enhance and improve it

In September 2022 we started this process by carefully moving as much of the pond flora and fauna as possible from our old pond into a new temporary pond in front of the Waterhouse building. The large temporary pond was created to ensure that the species living in our original pond had somewhere to live before being moved back to the new pond in spring 2023. 

We spoke to Sam Thomas (UK Biodiversity Officer) to find out more about how our pond life is faring. 

Our new temporary pond set up

It’s now been six months since the temporary pond was filled on our front lawn. We have one main pond which has silt, sediment, marginal plants, aquatic plants and fauna from our old wildlife pond. We also have two additional holding tanks filled with spare water from the old pond, which has all the beneficial micro-organisms needed for a healthy pond environment. We also have one more much smaller pond dedicated to our juvenile newt population, that we’re calling the newt spa! Adult newts are mainly terrestrial during the winter months, so they’re happily resting in a specially fenced off area of the gardens while work continues.

The newt spa!

Temporary ponds aren’t widely used for the storage and translocation of living biodiversity which makes this trial an exciting opportunity to learn more about how this method works.

We’re pleased to say that the temporary pond seems to have been a great success so far, the main pond is thriving with plenty of promising signs of a healthy balanced aquatic environment. 

Here are some of our top finds recently, that indicate our temporary pond is proving to be a very happy stop-gap home for our pond flora and fauna.  

  • Pond Olive – Cloeon dipterum – a mayfly species we spotted during some pond-dipping 
  • Great Ramshorn Snail – Planorbarius corneus – in abundance and seen grazing on algae on the side of the pond  
  • Blue-tailed Damselfly – Ischnura elegans – their larvae were plentiful during pond dipping  
  • Water Hog-louse – Asellus aquaticus – lots of these can be seen on the inside of the pond liner 

This spring we’re excited to take the next step in the process, when the new pond will be ready to receive all this valued aquatic life. Stay tuned to hear more about this.  

Wildlife Garden Autumn BioBlitz – Pond Species Review Part 2

A Caddis Fly case

In the latest BioBlitz which took place in the Museum’s Wildlife Garden in October, we had a look in the garden’s pond to discover what kind of animals leave there! This is the second part of the blog where we share the results with you.

Continue reading  to find out more about the species found in the pond! Continue reading “Wildlife Garden Autumn BioBlitz – Pond Species Review Part 2”

Wildlife Garden Autumn BioBlitz – Pond Species Review Part 1|Citizen science

In the latest BioBlitz which took place in the Museum’s Wildlife Garden, we had a look in the garden’s pond to discover what kind of animals live there! We were very excited to see many of you taking part in our pond dipping and we would like to share with you what we found.

Read on to discover what we found.

Continue reading “Wildlife Garden Autumn BioBlitz – Pond Species Review Part 1|Citizen science”

07 Fantastic mini-beasts and where to find them | #NHM_Live

This week we were out in our leafy grounds with Steph West of the Museum’s Angela Marmont Centre for UK Biodiversity. She talked to host David Urry about the wildlife in your gardens, from millipedes to stag beetles, and pond life to log life.

Steph will also be featuring in a BBC TV programme in the near future and we’ll have more news on that soon.

If you’re enjoying our this series of events, please leave us a review on iTunes or join us live on Facebook or Twitter to ask your own questions to our scientists.

New plans for the Museum’s green spaces: connecting people and nature | Science, society and skills

A little over a month ago, the Museum applied for planning permission to continue with an ambitious transformation of its outdoor spaces. Drs John Tweddle, Paul Kenrick and Sandy Knapp of the Museum’s Science Group provide the background to the project and clarify its impact on the Wildlife Garden.

This week marks 21 years since the establishment of the Museum’s Wildlife Garden – a wonderfully green and diverse space tucked away in the western corner of our South Kensington grounds. Since then these habitats have been actively managed and have matured into their current condition.

6. Insect rich grassland WLG_01062015_185
Vibrant and verdant colours in the Wildlife Garden at the west end of the Museum

The anniversary gives us a moment to reflect on how the Museum and its partners are contributing to inspiring people to look more closely at wildlife around them – something that’s a hugely important part of our jobs – and to look forward to how we can make even more of this in the future.

Continue reading “New plans for the Museum’s green spaces: connecting people and nature | Science, society and skills”