Wildlife Ponds-Projects on a budget

In this edition of Top Tips, Stephen Thompson also known as The Conservation Buddha gives some of his best advice for the use of ponds on golf courses in creating habitats. Any kind of water feature on a golf course can only be a good thing, providing water for animals to drink from and attracting insects such as Dragonflies and Butterflies to the plants etc that grow by the water edge and maybe Bats flying over the surface on a hot summers night. As soon as a pond goes in, big or small wildlife will find it.

Building a pond or water feature can be expensive particularly if you want to build a big one but it doesn't have to be. Start small scale, perhaps with a few washing-up bowls sunk into the ground. You might have a tarpaulin sheet lying around unused, that could be a pond liner if you wanted a bigger pond. You could also use a child's paddling pool. If the water table was high enough you could dig a pond down to the natural levels but the risk with that is, in a hot summer it will dry out.

The Dragonflies will find any water feature you put in. See the photo above a Small red-eyed Damselfly making use of a leaf floating on the water.

Helping Wildlife on the golf course doesn't have to mean spending a lot of money. Anything you can do now to help wildlife will only be of benefit for the future.

Look out for the January edition of Pitchcare, as Stephen expands on other budget-friendly wildlife projects.