Moving water is good!

[MikeDale]

We have a rock in the back yard that had a nice overhang that I saw would make a nice waterfall. I dug out underneath the overhang removed some hulking great rocks and inserted a circular plastic tub. I dropped a pump in there and brought the hose out to the side and behind the rock and voila! Instant water fall. I added a wire mesh to cover the reservoir and covered it with pebbles to make it look realistic. I added a few little pools out of cement and to guide the flow a little better. The birds love it! This evening at one point I had 3 Grackles, 3 American Robins, 2 Hermit Thrushes, a Northern Flicker, and a White-breasted Nutchatch all lined up taking their turn to bathe.

[birdpotter]

That looks fantastic!! Very natural indeed.
I used to have a very small backyard pond(six feet by four feet by three feet deep at its deepest) that I worked on for years. By the time I moved, it had a two tiered waterfall, very slow, with rocks and plants and all sorts of lovely things. That summer was the first summer a Blue Growbeak visited my yard. It was fantastic. And it was right out my back window, so all I had to do was stand there and watch the amazing numbers of birds who visited. The summer I left was the second summer we had frogs not only taken up residency, but pumped out hundreds of tadpoles. That was fantastic. Leopard frogs, I believe they were. Ahhhh, memories...

Best
Elizabeth

[robinm]

I can vouch for the value of having moving water - in our case a waterfall and stream. We are regularly visited in winter by Grey Wagtail - a bird of flowing streams.

Glad your hard work is paying dividends :t: