We lost one of our fish this morning, well actually, it happened last night, a Heron must have paid us a visit around 8.30 - 9pm, Merlin went in the Garden and started barking drawing our attention to what he found on the lawn. One of our two remaining Golden Orff had been stabbed by a Heron and lifted out of the pond, it was still breathing but its body was fairly dry due to the heat, I picked it up and put it back in the pond keeping a check on it , it seemed to rally round and started to swim, but, this morning I found him dead under the lilly pad leaves, its a shame as I've had him for quite awhile, certainly over ten years; it was just over 20 inches long and weighed four and a half pounds and far too big for a Heron to swallow, given it's weight and I assumed it struggled, so I'm surprised that it even managed to lift it from the pond.
Because I've been at home and that the pond has cover on it with the plants etc we have not netted the pond and the pumps switch off at 8pm so the water was nice and still. So probably due to the high heat that we have been having coupled with low river levels has meant that the Herons are finding garden ponds easy pickings, we have not seen a Heron flying near here for many months . Golden Orff are a good barometer for the health of the pond and are always the first to take the food. We now have just one left which is almost white in appearance as it's golden yellow colour left it some years ago.
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