Carless
Well-known member
I'm back again. The fish-watching sort of dwindled out in the winter. Most of the natural waters that I'd been looking at were too swollen, and murky to see anything, the fish seem to disappear (actually go deeper) during the winter, and the water is really cold, preventing getting in to have a closer look. But the water has cleared up, warmed up, and fish are active again. We've been feeding the swarms of minnows in a local river. They seem to go for pretty well anything that sinks. My partner described them as acting "like piranha".
The sticklebacks are all in the mating game, with many males coloured up, and many females seriously swollen with eggs. We were watching some in the koi pond in the Uni of Leicester's botanical gardens. Surprisingly (to me) it seemed to be the females that would approached, and be chased away by the rather choosy males. I suppose this is a side effect of it being the male that invests time in building the nest and looking after the young. It was a contrast to see (presumably) smooth newts with the opposite strategy, many males chasing each fat female. Also, while watching newts in a pond, we suddenly saw one about twice as large as all the others with a big serrated crest - we presume a great crested newt.
Finally, we peeked in a bucket of a kid doing some pond dipping in the River Lin. Two stone loach. I've seen fast shapes in the water, but never seen them close before.
The sticklebacks are all in the mating game, with many males coloured up, and many females seriously swollen with eggs. We were watching some in the koi pond in the Uni of Leicester's botanical gardens. Surprisingly (to me) it seemed to be the females that would approached, and be chased away by the rather choosy males. I suppose this is a side effect of it being the male that invests time in building the nest and looking after the young. It was a contrast to see (presumably) smooth newts with the opposite strategy, many males chasing each fat female. Also, while watching newts in a pond, we suddenly saw one about twice as large as all the others with a big serrated crest - we presume a great crested newt.
Finally, we peeked in a bucket of a kid doing some pond dipping in the River Lin. Two stone loach. I've seen fast shapes in the water, but never seen them close before.