Recently I wrote about adding a pond to our patch of Ninewells wood. Well I have been giving it some thought and talking to folks on the small woodland owners group (SWOG) and there are two possibilities. One would be the use of some type of linner plastic or butyl, and that would be expensive and there is the problem of deer sticking their hooves through it and perhaps most important I do not have a source of water anywhere near the wood. This is a photo of my ‘pond’ or hole in the ground as it looks today (7th May 2018) and as you can see despite all the rain and snow this year it is now down to the last cm of water.
Second option is bentonite which is dried clay and you spread it over the bottom of your pond and puddle it in to make a layer of clay and thus form a ‘natural’ pond. However would it work? and then I still would have to top it up during dry spells and no local water source.
So I have changed my mind. The main reason for wanting a pond is to attract wildlife to drink when there is a short supply of water during the summer months and then maybe to get some nice photos. So what I want is a water hole not a pond. Pond would be nice but a big effort, expensive and not practical.
So I have installed a water hole. It is a plastic plant pot. Square and reasonably large. I dug a hole near to my developing hide ( still lots to do here as you can see ).
And I placed the pot in the hole. There were four small drainage holes in the bottom of the pot but I filled them with gunk a couple of days ago. The pot does now hold water.
I then filled in around the pot and added flat stones so that the green plastic was less visible. I also stacked up some stones on one side so that were any little creature inadvertently to fall in then it would have an escape route. I then poured in 20 litres of water which nearly filled it up. A second jerry can full will more than fill it. Now all I need to do is keep it topped up which should not be too difficult and to wait for all the wildlife to discover it. In the meantime I need to work on my ‘hide’.
I took some photos of the water hole from my developing hide and with my 100 to 400 lens this is what I will see.
100 mm.
300 mm.
and 400 mm.
Should be OK.
Ninewells Wood 
There are people camping in your wood this evening – are they there with your permission? We haven’t spoken to them, about 6-8 people with several tents. They’re also lighting a camp fire…
Yes they have my permission, I told my neighbors, but thanks very much for letting me know,t