Help! A bit of lateral thinking needed . . .

[Brian-Gaff]

Surely, Herons stand in the water very still then jab. Thus the only thing that will work is fine strong netting over the top, as they get their feet caught in it. Brian

[Syd Rumpo]

Dye the water orange so the Heron can't see the fish.

Cheers

[Roger Mills]

Probably. They're lilies of some sort - I'm not an expert in such things!

[Roger Mills]

Herons tend to visit at dawn and dusk - usually when everyone is in bed

- so we rarely see them in the garden. But we know when they've visited, because the fish are traumatised. We did once manage to photograph a young heron standing by the side of the pond:

Most of the pond is about 2' deep, but there's a much shallower shelf most of the way round, to stand the plants on. You can see this in this photo which was taken when the pond was being cleaned out last year:

My guess is that they walk in and drop onto the shelf - from which they can fish very easily.

Most of the fish are a bit big for them to handle - but that doesn't stop them from having a go. In the past, they've managed to spike the odd fish and pull it out onto the paving, but not to carry it away - so we just find a dead spiked fish in the morning.

[The fish are Golden Orfe, which apparently don't breed in captivity - but nobody told ours, and they are now on the 4th generation!]

[Vir Campestris]

And I've heard it attracts them...

I understand a tripwire right on the edge works. Don't have any fish, so I haven't tried. The 5 species of amphibians have been there hundreds of years without my help.

Andy

[ARW]

This has to be a joke.

Traumatised fish?

[Roger Mills]

Absolutely. No joke. If you feed them when they're relaxed, they come up and gently take the pellets and stay on the top whilst they munch them. When they're traumatised, they nervously come to the top, snatch the food and immediately dive to the bottom with it. The difference in behaviour is very marked.

[Davey]

PSF_412539|alt

Correction: It is that one, and the neighbours say that it has worked perfectly so far. No herons, at a pond that was previously emptied by one, one fish at a time. I reckon that £13 is a good investment.

[Dave Liquorice]

Maybe one of the cheap IP security cameras with IR illumination will assist in your observations?

That seems very likely. So if you can make it hard for them to stand on the shelf they won't be able to fish. I wonder if 20 to 30 mm crushed ballast would be too rough for their feet?

[Davey]

Or if you have money, one of those Trail Cameras. But they tend to be about £130, so dubious as for value.

[Jonno]

Dave Liquorice scribbled

Nah, the buggers don't have any problem standing in/beside gravel pits.

[Jonno]

Brian-Gaff scribbled

Something like this

[harryagain]

You can buy a mains water squirter actuated by PIR cells for cats and herons. Doesn't have to actually hit them. Possibly rig one up using parts. Also squirts people if you forget to turn it off.

You can buy a floating mesh that goes round the periphery of the pond. When they step on it, it gives them a fright, it won't support them.

[Dave Liquorice]

They also tend to only do stills or short bits of video after the PIR detector gets triggered. This really neds continious record so the full behaviour cane be seen.

Currently playing with a HikVision DS-2CD2432F-I pictures are pretty damn good and the low light sans IR illumination. Ticks all the boxes apart from one. Can't FTP a still image with a fixed filename to a remote server, it's the (simple) fixed filename that it can't do. B-(

[Ash Burton]

I had a similar problem, after the heron ate all the fish i had a quote for £5k to replace the liner, fountain and paving.

I had the pond filled in for a fraction of that.

--- news://freenews.netfront.net/ - complaints: [e-mail] ---

[Malcolm Race]

Prickler strips sold to keep cats or burglars off fences etc

Malcolm

[JimK]

/Prickler strips sold to keep cats or burglars off fences etc/q

Rifle w nightscope?

Jim K