Monday 31 May 2010

The Fishy Business of Pond Life


I waited three years for this iris to bloom in the raised pond in our courtyard.  I like to think it has a sort of Japanese serenity which belied the manic activity taking place below it over a few days last week.  


I dreamt of stocking our water wonderland with magnificent koi carp - gold, vermilion, black, white and silver cruising beauties to delight the eye. But the head pondkeeper in my life decreed that they lay waste to all vegetation and we should choose fish that were more respectful of their surroundings. His slightly annoying solution was golden rudd (with the exception of a solitary elder they're hardly even gold!)  who are discreet to the point of  being a wretched bore ninety percent of the time. Ah, but when it's feeding time,  they emerge in shoals, darting in all directions, flipping the surface with their tails as they snatch a mouthful and then coming back together in a more graceful formation.  Gaze down through the limpid greeny depths and it's delightful. 









In the balmy weather of our phoney summer last week,  I heard the sweet  sounds of some fishy business going on.  I now know this group hanky panky to be 'spawning' but
that's the limit of my understanding as to what exactly it was they were up to.  I did feel like a voyeur lying on the pond edge watching my normally shy chums brazenly wriggling into the curlywurly weeds on the surface thrashing, splashing, nudging and bumping and seductively turning turtle.  Were they discharging their part of the bargain into the water or was this some kind of communal foreplay?  It was hard to tell but I'm sure we'll see some results sooner or later.

8 comments:

  1. OOOHH, Now I can see why you haven't been in blogland; you have a lovely pond to gaze at! So deliriously jealous of your small slice of heaven!

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  2. Oh thank you, Stefan. It's a glorious time-waster.

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  3. Dear mermaid, it is very good to have you back.

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  4. Blue, that's one of the nicest things anyone has ever called me.

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  5. Indeed, having only discovered you short weeks before you went 'poof', I am glad to have this case of bloggus interruptus over

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  6. But I did enjoy going 'poof'. I always do. Bloggus interruptus - you must be the best phrasemaker out there.

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  7. My wife's father can't understand why we don't harvest the fish from the farm irrigation pond that was built sometime in the fifties. We feed them quick oats or layer crumbles almost daily. The bream come to feed on the oats, the bass come to feed on the bream.
    It's hard to explain to some folks that you don't eat your pets.
    That's a very well made fishpond. I noticed the brickwork immediately because I am in the middle of botching a chimney.

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  8. rurritable, thanks for the compliment over the brickwork. The builder drinks an average 8 pints of beer a day but still manages to deliver the goods.

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