Norfolk Ponds Project

A bat detector next to a restored pond in winter. It sits above a bullrush bed & points at open water

A bat detector next to a restored pond in winter

Do #bats visit restored farm #ponds vs. overgrown farm ponds & the surrounding landscape preferentially in winter? Well @davidjd.bsky.social & @stephenmulvey.bsky.social of @uclgeography.bsky.social & Norfolk Ponds are working on this @batconservation.bsky.social @norfolknats.bsky.social

Pond Restoration Training: 25th & 26th June 2026 — Freshwater Biological Association Ponds are increasingly being recognised as critical to biodiversity conservation in UK landscapes. This new two-day course will introduce participants to pond restoration science and best practice. Gr...

This @freshwaterbio.bsky.social #pond restoration training course 25th, 26th June is well worth attending. Learn how to restore degraded existing ponds & #ghostponds with Norfolk Ponds Project founders Carl Sayer & Helen Greaves:

www.fba.org.uk/shop/p/pond-...

A farm #pond we restored in 2014 showing multiple valuable habitats. Open water with submerged plants, a thick bed of Typha, lightly vegetated shallow shelving edge, bramble patch, woodland fringe, mini ancient woodland meadow (promontary on R) with early purple orchid. All this in a tiny footprint

A flooded #palaeochannel #pond on a semi-natural English chalk stream floodplain. A great place for fishes on the move right now & for amphibians in a few months. By summer it will probably be dry. But while it is water-filled all sorts of species will use it

Thanks so much :) High possibility of rare plants turning up in the ponds over next few years!!!

Webun

A previously restored farmland #pond managed yesterday. Now you can see the forest horizon. A better habitat for aquatic plants, Great Crested Newt & all sorts of other creatures. This pond is bang in the middle of a big arable field yet everything goes to it

3 days of #pond management completed. We worked on 8 ponds that we restored over the last 10 years. Removing scrub is alot of fun & hugely benefits the ponds & so many species spanning plants, invertebrates, amphibians & mammals. *Thanks so much to all our brill volunteers*

A pond with its banks cleared of willow, bramble and thorn scrub. Blue sky is reflected in deeper blue colour on the pond surface. There are piles of brash in the background as well as people wearing day-glo reflective yellow tabards, two of whom can be seen reflected in the water.

A pond in farmland with thickets invading its banks. A person with day-glow reflective yellow tabard is working with a saw nearby. There is a pile of brash on the right.

Solar blue is reflected in the placid water of a Bodham pond while @norfolkponds.bsky.social minions strip its brambley banks bare of scrub. Great pond restoration works are under way this weekend. Work will resume on an even more thorny pond today.

What a difference a #pond management day makes. 4 ponds down & 8 to go over the next 2 days!!!

We are managing previously restored farmland ponds in North Norfolk, eastern England over the next 3 days. Lots of volunteers coming in. Watch this space for top tips & wild #pond conservation action!!!

I think prob roach or something. Dace not thought to hv ever been in N. Norfolk rivers.

So you caught Dace in Glaven? Can you say where? Not currently present in river so this is important stuff.

Have you seen or heard of Dace in Glaven?

Holt Sewage Treatment works!

A #ghostpond in the gloom. We resurrected this #pond about 8 years ago. As I approached I flushed 2 wild mallards & a snipe. Soon we will need to scrape out the bullrush - but the pond is still doing its thing lifting species populations in the farmed countryside

Brilliant fishy #pond conservation. At Kelling Heath Holiday Park, Norfolk, E. England they have fish & non-fish ponds.

Science says that having some ponds with native pond-associated fish & others without fish increases biodiversity at the landscape-scale.

Yes agreed. Sorry initially read your message wrong!!

Prob a good guess!! In daytime it is something like this. V v high bat activity at open-canopy restored ponds due to big emerging insect resource. Prize is a free pint in yee oldee Red Hart Inn.

One of Norfolk's very special farm #ponds during greenhouse gas sampling. Hello Pickpocket Pit. Treeless & enclosed by lesser tussock sedge & full of all sorts of goodies including the scarce greater duckweed. And bang in the middle of a big arable field. Invisible to all except for a passing eagle

Many Norfolk farm #ponds have steep sides especially at the old clay/marl pit digging face. Sometimes, if cleared of scrub, a stunning vertical meadow is formed along the sharp moisture gradient from waters edge to bank top. Here Sayer's Black Pit, the first pond we restored in 2011, shows the way

Filled in with soil to get more farmland

Restored spring fed farm #ponds are the jewels of the countryside! Hence why we exist. They need to be cared for & managed & they should never be filled in!!!

Plants all from different sites. Pond with Bladder Sedge is in arable that, going back 100 yrs, was former heath. Pond also has Juncus bulbosos & lesser marshwort with Potamogeton natans dominating in wetter years.

Place names very important. Lines & patches of Scots Pine. Passed down stories. The old often survives in plain sight.

Rare plants often turn up in restored Norfolk farm #ponds: Translucent Stonewort (Nitella translucens), Tassel Stonewort (Tolypella intricata), Bladder Sedge (Carex vesicaria) & Marsh Speedwell (Veronica scutellata). Very special species usually confined to nature reserves

Keep safe!!!

I dont think much evidence for that one or for feet! Its such a conundrum...

A v v v good question. Extremely mysterious & poorly understood. Flooding yes. But for ponds isolated from pipes, ditches, streams...noone knows!

Fantastic farm #pond #fishes. 3-spine stickleback (Right) & 9-spine stickleback (Left). Both can go to sea! The 3-spine prefers open water & the 9-spine loves dense plant-filled water. The male 9-spine (Lower Left) goes entirely black when breeding. Crackers! @fishtwitcher.bsky.social