Tag Archives: Ramshorn pond snail

Natural History, Natural Patterns

Snail Egg Pattern

Snail Eggs in Pond
Snail Eggs in Pond

Walking past the main pond, my eye was caught by a striking pattern reminiscent of a brain coral. Lying down on the boardwalk to get the diminutive lens of my phone camera as close to the pond surface as possible, the squiggles resolved themselves into long patterns of jelly divided mostly into hexagonal areolae like miniature cells in a honeycomb, each with a white boundary and a tiny yellow egg at its centre.

At the top left of the photo is a large Ramshorn Snail: several others were nearby, so they are the likely culprits. Generally pond snail egg masses (as laid by the large pointy-spiral pond snail Limnaea) are small, undistinguished jelly-blobs, so these large, impressive structures were a surprise.

Natural History, Nature Reserves, Wildlife

Spring has sprung

Ramshorn pond snails
Ramshorn pond snails

Today dawned foggy and cool, but the sun soon burnt its way through and it became a hot spring day. I spent most of it reroofing the tool shed at the Gunnersbury Triangle nature reserve. It was in tatters after at least one hard winter, and it was an interesting exercise peeling off the layers hopefully tacked one on top of the leaky other. I then removed three full boards from the roof, complete with what I’m sure any mycologist would have found a fascinating colony of wet rot fungus, together with several wriggly centipedes and a lot of woodlice.

As it grew hotter on the roof, I was joined by at least two species of hoverfly, one large, dark, and almost unstriped. A brimstone butterfly chased around with a smaller white, perhaps a green-veined or an orange tip. A comma butterfly wandered about. Down below, the stinging nettles, hops, and garlic mustard (ideal for orange tips) are coming up nicely, but there’s too much cow parsley and some volunteers are pulling a lot of it out.

Newly-Hatched Tadpoles
Newly-Hatched Tadpoles

At lunchtime I walked down to the pond. Chiffchaffs were singing all over; the pond was suddenly covered in pond skaters (Gerris) with one or two whirligig beetles. The tadpoles have hatched out into a wriggling mass.
Spring has sprung.

Conservation, Wildlife

What are we conserving?

Kings Cross Development looms over Camley Street's new Viewpoint
Kings Cross Development looms over Camley Street’s new Viewpoint

Everyone in the packed council chamber turned to look at the chairman of the planning committee. The members had voted 6-6: a tie. “As chair with the casting vote, I am voting for the development.” There was stunned silence. The developers said nothing. We objectors took a deep breath and said nothing. Gunnersbury Triangle Nature Reserve would never be the same again.

London Wildlife Trust’s other central London reserve at Camley Street is also changing. A 10 storey block has cut off the view. Were all our reserves being trashed? Were we fighting for nothing? 30 years ago a passionate campaign saved the Gunnersbury Triangle from becoming four industrial units. Miraculously, with a huge input of volunteer effort, it became a wet woodland with little meadows, grassy banks, leafy paths, a handy pond for school pond-dipping. Now it’s surrounded by 4, 6, 8-storey buildings. The latest one at Colonial Drive is right up against the reserve boundary — at the top of a ten-foot bank. The quiet meadow and scrubby corner where the whitethroats nested will be illuminated 24 hours a day by stray lamps from a wall of flats. “I’m desperately saddened at the insensitive nature of the development — it robs local people of the sense of countryside,” says long- time campaigner and Gunnersbury Triangle committee member Jan Hewlett.

Certainly, the reserves will feel different. But Camley Street has a new ‘Viewpoint’, an architect-designed floating open-air classroom. It will be beautiful to sit and learn on the canal, in the little watery oasis in the midst of the busy city. At Gunnersbury Triangle, too, the blackcaps and thrushes will delight our hearts in springtime. School groups will still lie down on the boardwalk we built and enjoy catching newts, dragonfly larvae and ramshorn pond snails.

Our reserves must change with our great city. They do not feel like forgotten corners of countryside any more. They are little oases, islands in a sea of noise and pollution and traffic. They are special exactly because they are right in the heart of our vibrant capital city.