• Hi all and welcome to TheWoodHaven2 brought into the 21st Century, kicking and screaming! We all have Alasdair to thank for the vast bulk of the heavy lifting to get us here, no more so than me because he's taken away a huge burden of responsibility from my shoulders and brought us to this new shiny home, with all your previous content (hopefully) still intact! Please peruse and feed back. There is still plenty to do, like changing the colour scheme, adding the banner graphic, tweaking the odd setting here and there so I have added a new thread in the 'Technical Issues, Bugs and Feature Requests' forum for you to add any issues you find, any missing settings or just anything you'd like to see added/removed from the feature set that Xenforo offers. We will get to everything over the coming weeks so please be patient, but add anything at all to the thread I mention above and we promise to get to them over the next few days/weeks/months. In the meantime, please enjoy!

Recent regular garden visitor

9fingers":3lb6mohs said:
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Scared it off 5 times now in the last three days. I think we only lost one fish but the others are in hiding and only taking food at night so difficult to say. Floating mesh protectors on order.
b'std thing!

Bob
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We've tried all sorts Bob and apart from an unsightly net (which works) the only thing that will keep Mr.H from cleaning out your entire pond is an electric fence: https://bradshawsdirect.co.uk/food-more ... ric-fence/

When Mr or Mrs H's bare little leggies touch the wire they get a distinct and painful belt (I know all about it!) The day before we saw a young one one on a neighbours roof who probably paid us a visit and was wondering what the hell happened to him! :lol: Get one; highly recommended - Rob

IMG_1467.jpeg

Edit - tried those interlocking floating mesh thingies and they're a waste of time.
 
9fingers":ongrtx99 said:
I suspect that electric fence type solutions won't work on our above ground brick built ponds as the return path will have too high resistance in dry weather.

I might do some measurements and experiment.

Bob
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As you know Bob, I'm no expert when it comes to electickery stuff, but the return path to earth is a 400mm long steel rod than you hammer into the ground with a big maul. The thing on the stick is the' box of tricks' and it ticks like a bomb so you know it's 'live':

IMG_1469.jpeg

I believe this method can be used on brick built koi ponds as well and was recommended to me by an old bloke at Porton Aquatic when I was nattering to him about herons. He agreed that nothing else works (apart from a net) except an electric leg tickling fence :D Although they don't sell the Velda system, this is the kit he recommended to all his customers who had a persistent problem with Mr. H.

If you don't stop him, he (or she) will keep on coming back until your pond is bereft of fishies - Rob
 
Having a ground return is likely to be the problem. The heron will likely land form the air onto the bricks which being "hard as a whore's heart" engineering bricks will be isolated from earth and touching the fence bit will possibly have minimal effect.
I could return the ground connection to the water easily enough and should the heron dip its beak into the water whilst touching the wire it will get a belt.
Most sightings have been the heron strutting in the garden or standing on the walls of the pond but yesterday it landed in the pond itself and was standing on the bottom (9" deep) so there would be no chance of a shock.

With an in-ground pond with heron on the grass/soil etc and then a leg touch the wire and the other on the soil is perfect and will work as you have found

I will see how the floating grids work. Can't really see how they can fail but could make leaf skimming a PITA

Bob
 
This method worked for me. The netting from the garden centre and is intended for covering fruit bushes. It’s very cheap and although mine looks a bit grubby it’s lasted about ten years so far
The piece of timber in a groove makes the netting easy to fit and tension. The timber is iroko IMG_1326.jpeg
 
9fingers":1clsgyah said:
I will see how the floating grids work. Can't really see how they can fail but could make leaf skimming a PITA

Bob
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Tried those things Bob and they almost completely obliterate the fish and lilies; SWIMBO very unhappy bunny; likewise with a net. The Velda kit costs about as much as a tank of fuel for my motor so I'm sure that with a bit of creative ingenuity on your behalf you could easily get it to work and it could quite easily solve your problem with Mr or Mrs H - Rob
 
Well I have now. Thanks. There are a few downsides such as getting mains pressure water to the location so possibly going to be a last resort method.
Does seem attactive to give the neighbours cats a dousing and although I think I've minimised the rat problem now could have been fun to try on them.
Note I could never arrange a time when the near feral cat from next door was in our garden to see off the rats.

Bob
 
9fingers":aw3zpt5m said:
Well I have now. Thanks. There are a few downsides such as getting mains pressure water to the location so possibly going to be a last resort method.

Bob
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The mains pressure isn't the biggest problem. Unless you've got über soft water you'll find the internal gubbins of those things gums up with limescale in the blink of a heartbeat. Mine lasted about a week before it was summarily consigned to the wheely bin - Rob
 
I usually go down the fishmongers. Why rear your own ? :lol:
 
Cabinetman":98y3t1mu said:
I imagine the first thing to be blasted with the water jet would be me if I tried it ha ha.
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...or SWIMBO in our case. Not a happy bunny :lol: - Rob
 
We have used movement activated water jet for years. Never had a problem with scale but eventually sunlight kills them after a few years as they are mainly plastic. Very effective at keeping Herons off. We have had one or two land, and one sadly broke its neck. Ours is set to be armed at dawn and dusk, as these are the high risk periods. Off during the day unless we are away. If I had to use a net I wouldn't bother with the ponds. Too ugly.

The best deterrent though is depth. Our main Koi pond is vertical straight sided and 6 feet deep. Heron's won't land in very deep water.

Our most voracious predator is the Kingfisher. We have a lot of small and smallish fish in our canal pond. Fish can hide but Kingfishers are patient.
 
AJB Temple":1n60gt7q said:
We have used movement activated water jet for years. Never had a problem with scale but eventually sunlight kills them after a few years as they are mainly plastic.

The best deterrent though is depth. Our main Koi pond is vertical straight sided and 6 feet deep. Heron's won't land in very deep water.
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Given where you live Adrian, I would have thought your water was very hard; ours certainly is here in Salisbury. Our water jet thingie was worse than useless and was summarily binned after a few days. Agree about depth of the pond though; Mr. H is a shallow water wader and apparently his little skinny legs give off some sort of scent in the water that attracts the fish. In the shallow river that runs just outside Wilton House (very grand if you've never been) there's a couple of White Egrets who regularly fish for their brekkie about 8.00am. Slightly smaller than a Grey Heron but very pleasant to see them in the water - Rob
 
You are right. The water is quite hard (comes from Bewl Water - nearby huge lake). But limescale has never affected the outdoor system. Sunlight and frost eventually kill all Hoselock type stuff.

Our is battery powered (4AA) and it is basically just a motion activated garden sprinkler. You can make the jet very narrow and alter the height and arc, it also makes a considerable clacking sound when it goes off. It even deters the Moorhens.

We get Egrets occasionally here too. They wade in the little stream beside us when it is full enough and not too overgrown. We have a vast array of carp fishing lakes in this area and numerous tributaries to the Medway, so that presumably attracts the wading birds.

We are actually now overrun with fish and I am starting to think I need to do something about it. I can't filter all of the ponds and the little devils breed.
 
Admittedly I know less than bugger all about, birds, fish or contained water, however the funniest thing i have read in a while which im sure ill be using on a daily basis "as hard as a whores heart" :D (no offence to any whores who may read this)
 
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