Pond Life

Today

One of the mixed blessings of Spencer House is the acquisition of an ornamental stream and Victorian lake.We share the lake with our neighbours but both are charged with the duty of preserving its antique loveliness.

Quite how we are supposed to do this with overgrown rhododendrons, ubiquitous duckweed and the unrelenting rain, I'm not sure.

These waters are, of course, full of life; some kind of carp swim around hopelessly and I'm sure I've seen leeches. The barrowloads of duckweed I remove are full of tiny crayfish, water beetles and water boatmen. One insect, I feel sure, was preparing to become a dragonfly.

And there are thousands of tadpoles. A close-up view suggests not only frogs but also newts might emerge from these creatures - we just need some warmer weather to help them along.

In My Day

When I was a child tadpoles were at the heart of learning about how life develops from the egg. Even in London it was fairly easy to find a bit of water, maybe a puddle in a bombed site, that was full of frog spawn.

Teachers just loved this practical lesson, You could see so clearly the eggs in the translucent spawn. As you watched these hatched into tiny, black, wriggling tadpoles. They had long tails to help them wriggle along and no legs.

As the days went by you watched, fascinated, as legs appeared and the tails got shorter. You could see each stage of the progress towards being a frog. Since the similar progress in human development is hidden deep within the body this was very exciting.

Eventually, your tadpoles became frogs and, like all children, embraced their maturity by leaping out of the water into adult life, never to be seen again.

We have been told that there are sometimes also ducklings on the lake, but this year we have only seen two rather lonely-looking drakes.