Pond becomes a magnet to wildlife during a frost

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2016/dec/30/country-diary-ladle-hill-dewpond-raven

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Refreshed by the labour of the climb, my legs nonetheless argue for respite on the crest of the hill. And, just as it does on the map, the dewpond appears a little way below me as a neat circle of blue reflecting a flawless sky on a day of hard frost.

The pond is at the very top of the downs. On one side is flint-spewing earth, which in summer is covered in a yellow cowl of rapeseed. And on the other is grazing pasture capping the concentric earthen rings of the iron age fort that stands sentinel on the hill’s northern ridge. The lightest of winds twitches the smears of wool caught on wire barbs. Up here ‘There is no life higher than the grasstops / Or the hearts of sheep…’, as Sylvia Plath wrote of the West Yorkshire moors in Wuthering Heights, her poem of exquisite introspection.

This is the only unfrozen water for what must be a kilometre in each direction and during hard frosts like this one the dewpond – a Victorian creation of crushed and puddled chalk made for watering livestock – becomes a magnet to the wildlife of the surrounding downland.

I see a raven at its edge, blackest of blacks against the frosted grass as it stoops to drink. Just a few metres further around the perimeter, a chattering bevy of goldfinch moves erratically between the branches of the hawthorn and the water. During past frosts and heavy snow, I’ve seen roe deer emerge from the nearby line of ash and oak to seek water and to drink with all the nervous hesitancy of a savannah gazelle. Chuckling partridge come here too, and during the thaw I saw the sleek and neat pads of a fox etched in the muddy edges.

The raven has had its fill and I have had my rest. It shifts its weight to dance forward over its own reflection and push upwards into the air. It flies a corkscrew pattern around the pond and away to the north. As it does, a red kite crosses its path and scratches its image across the mirrored water, scattering the last of the goldfinch.

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