Community spirit was on full display in Tullibody recently when the Delph Pond Forum held a special event to promote the local pond and the need to look after it.
The event, which is held twice a year, included a litter picking sessions and face-painting. I was honoured to have been asked to attend and provide information to children and their parents on the amazing array of wildlife that the pond holds.
Delph Pond is a real wildlife gem and on the day the community event staged, there were coots, mallards, tufted ducks, mute swans and black-headed gulls out on the water. As winter begins to take hold, goosanders also haunt the pond. By the pond edge, a wide range of aquatic plants prosper, including water mint.
Fed by an underground spring, Delph Pond has a fascinating history and was once used by the tannery in Tullibody to draw water to aid in its production processes.
Green spaces, such as Delph Pond and the surrounding park and woodland, are a vital component of any community, and it was great to see a steady stream of parents with their children turn-up at the event to help with litter picking.
Discarded plastic is a real hazard to wildlife, and one of the display boards at the event highlighted this, showing ducks with plastic caught around their bodies, and a fox with its head stuck in a plastic bottle.
Ponds are remarkably important wildlife habitats, often supporting far more life than their small size suggests. They are miniature freshwater ecosystems, and in our built-up environment, they act as vital refuges for nature.
Ponds, such as Delph Pond, support enormous numbers of insects and other invertebrates, which in turn provide food for bats, swallows, house martins, hedgehogs, shrews and fish.
It was wonderful to see at first-hand how much the Tullibody community cared about Delph Pond and its environs. And, with the support of the dedicated and hard-working volunteers of the Delph Pond Forum, this little watery oasis would appear to be in safe hands for many years to come.
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