Creating a wildlife pond with rainwater

Creating a wildlife pond is a great activity to do outside with children, we used a 12 litre bucket but you can use other containers of a similar size, we then added rocks and sticks found in our garden and a few pieces of pond weed we collected at our local pond.

First find a shady spot in the corner the garden for the bucket, this is best as on hot days we don't want the water heating up and evaporating. 

Next add a few rocks and branches, make sure that the branches provide sturdy bridges for wildlife to climb in and out. Carefully place the pondweed in-between the rocks, you don't need much as it will soon start to grow and multiply.

Now add rainwater, its really important that you use rainwater because it is naturally low in chlorine and does not contain any other chemicals which may have been added to tap water to treat it. Aquatic creatures including frogs and tadpoles prefer natural rainwater. 

Over the next few weeks keep checking on your pond, it may need topping up as water evaporates quickly especially on warm days. Its always best to top up with rainwater so not to add chemicals from treated tap water to the small developing ecosystem.

After a only a couple weeks we noticed small water insects in the bucket, the pond weed grew very fast providing shade for creatures underneath. After about 6 weeks after a weeks of hot weather with little rainfall we noticed bees drinking from the top of the water as well as 2 large frogs spending long periods of time in the bucket to escape the heat.

Once you have your wildlife pond set up its really important to keep it topped up so that creatures do not get trapped in the bottom, for this its useful to have a water butt so you have a source of free rainwater ready to top the water level up as it drops.