We have a lovely big pond in our garden here in Thailand, at 50m long large enough to be called a lake. I can tell it has a lot of wildlife in it from all the ripples, plops and splashes but most of it stays out of sight. Occasionally I get a good view of something like a water monitor lizard's head drifting around or the silver barb fish that like to gulp at the surface in the morning. I even once found part of a reticulated python's sloughed skin floating amongst the reeds! But the water is generally too muddy to really see what's going on.
The best excuse I have for trying to get a better look at what's below the surface is when our eight-year-old nephew comes to visit during the school holidays. Then I get out the "lobster-pot" net and we see what we can catch. Whatever comes up gets put into a small aquarium for a while to be photographed and gently played with before being returned to the pond.
Silver barb fish and water monitor lizards are two of the most visible pond residents even in the rain.
The cheap and easy, expandable net baited with fish-food that we use to catch all the fascinating small stuff.
A good day's catch held in an aquarium for entertainment and education.
Most of the time we get small gourami fish of various types, this one is a croaking gourami named after the sound it can apparently make but I have never heard.
A three-spot gourami with the others. This name confused me for a while until I realised that the eye is counted as the third spot! It has lovely long feelers from under its gills.
A very young striped snakehead fish with its characteristic long dorsal fin. They grow into the biggest fish we get at up to 50cm. They are good to eat but we treat our pond as a wildlife sanctuary and never catch the fish as food.
A slightly older striped snakehead fish grumpy in its temporary new home.
A halfbeak fish with its reflection. It spends its life at the water surface hunting mosquito larvae and is named for its very short upper mandible.
Blackline rasbora - a cute little fish always hanging around together in a loose shoal.
Marbled goby - in real life much more attractive than how fierce it looks in this photo.
Freshwater shrimps are the one animal I can guarantee to catch every time but I have to be careful to leave an air-pocket at the top of the catching net or they (and some of the gouramis) will die.
A black marsh terrapin - these guys are rarely seen because they tend not to come onto land like other turtles so I was very pleased to catch this one. You can just about see why it is also called the smiling terrapin.
The main point of the exercise: a hand's-on experience for a city boy! Hopefully instilling in him a love of our amazing nature.
All words and pictures my own.
