Molly’s Pond 5 is an addition to the Great Twin Pond Dig (GTPD) pond landscape in West Lancashire. It is an in-field farmland pond encroached with willow. We have been monitoring it, in addition to the four GTPD ponds and have recorded the plant and invertebrate life.
Molly’s Pond 5 dried up in the drought of 2018 allowing us to take short cores from the centre of the basin.
In October 2019, Volunteers from West Lancashire Wildlife and Edge Hill University helped to remove much of the vegetation surrounding the pond but we struggled to secure funding for a digger.
We therefore decided to continue to monitor the pond this year to see the impact of only scrub removal only in terms of seed bank regeneration.
So what happened?
As we slightly expected, no new aquatic plant species have as yet returned to Molly’s Pond 5. However, the willow stumps that we were not able to take out without a digger have flourished!
This demonstrates the ability of willow species to regenerate following coppicing and but also makes us extremely keen to see what, if anything, will return once the leaf litter layer has returned to the pond! We will be working on this pond on the weekend of the 5-6th October. If you would like to join us, visit the volunteer page.
Restoring, resurrecting and conserving Norfolk's ponds. 