Okay I am peed off big time! That stupid King Fisher snatched up my big breeding goldfish male last night! How is it that I was just saying I don't have any pond predators here??? I feel so darn bad for his mate, they have been inseperatable for 2 years now. I am sick about it. That bird dies today! Seriously, I was up all night feeling bad about having thoughts about killing an animal......now all I see is that little bad bird in my peep sight :)

I'm sorry about your goldfish. Don't blame the kingfisher. He's just doing what he has to do to survive. Kingfishers are smart and interesting birds. We don't have them here but the gorgeous great blue herons have come and taken some of my fish. I wish they wouldn't but try not to dwell on it. Was your goldfish in your big earthen pond? You can net your smaller ponds but not that big one.

GOOD NEWS!!!! My goldfish showed up last night :D :D :D . You should have seen how happy I was. I think he must have been out looking for his kids or something. There is a lot of water in there! I noticed that the fish all are taking cover in the shallows under some floating "crap" and in the weeds. I guess they know how to hide. I am going to come up with some kind of shallow shelter for them, just not sure what yet. I want it to look natural so it will be something with trees. Our neighbour just did a major overhaul on his yard so I got him to put a dozen giant poplar trees, stumps and all onto the back part of our property. It is a huge eyesore, LOL, the DH just about flipped when he saw it, but I think we can use the stumps etc to make homes for the ducks and hiding places for the fishies. I don't know how that is going to work out yet, but I will have to get an excavator in here for the new pond anyhow???

KK
Glad you found your goldfish. Now I'm ready to kill a bird. The pond has gotten more planktonic algae than I've ever seen, like someone dumped a bunch of fertilizer in the pond. As it turns out, that's exactly what happened. My wife and I were sitting on the deck last evening and a grackle flew down with a packet of baby bird droppings and carefully dropped it in my stream that leads to the waterfall. Birds get rid of their babies' droppings, which are inside a mucous sac about the size of a small grape. They do this to keep the nest clean and to get rid of smells that might attract predators. Anyway, we watched as this bird came to the stream about every 10 to 15 minutes with a packet of poop, dropped it in the stream, took a drink, came to the feeder and ate a few seeds. This continued all evening until it was dark. I figure that if that bird was doing that all day long every day, I'm getting the equivalent of several cups of fertilizer a week dumped in my pond. No wonder the system can't yet take care of it and the water is greener than ever. Thankfully, by order of floating and submergent plants will be here Tuesday. In the meantime, I'm sitting on the deck writing this and standing guard with a hose to squirt the little polluter every time I see him. Oop, there he is again; gotta squirt him.


Don

So, you blamed the sweet little birdy for eating your favorite goldfish but he didn't even do it? The kingfisher may have to eat a few fish to make up for the accusation.

Don, sorry but I laughed about the grackle. I wonder if you put a catch tarp where he likes to drop the packets, if he would still dump them there? If so, that would catch the mess. If not, he might chose another place, maybe not in the pond?

My bird problems here mostly consist of the English sparrows. I used to religiously remove their nests and eggs but they're relentless. I gave up. My "bluebird" houses are all now full of cheeping baby English sparrows. Once they're born, I can no more murder them than I could a human just because they're an invasive species who likes to destroy other species. One of the nest boxes if a foot from my waterfall. I wonder if I'm getting poopy packets too? Probably!

Robyn

I nailed the little booger three times with the hose each time he landed at the edge of the stream. After that, he came flying by, hesitated in flight by the stream and took off for parts unknown. I didn't see him back the rest of the day, so maybe he's chosen another sight or is just waiting for me to go away. We'll see tomorrow.

Don

Ha Ha, sorry Don, but I laughed my butt off too!! I could just picture your dilemna! Silly bird! Hopefully he got the hint and took off to find a new poo dump spot! BTW: We got our first hummingbird of the season here today :D

So let me see if I get this straight..:wacko:

First we are mad at the bird.
Then we are not.

Then we are mad at different bird.
Then gave it a bath three times with a hose.
Then we are not...

Ok, I get it. ;)

Well, it didn't work. The bird is back and doing the dirty thing, and it seems that every Grackle in the neighborhood is leaving their baby poop on the rocks around the pond. God, I hate those birds. I have some video that I need to upload so you can see.

Don