Why Pond Dipping Is Worth an Afternoon

A pond is the busiest square metre of water in Britain. Somewhere in that murky green shallows, a dragonfly nymph is lying in ambush, a water boatman is rowing about upside down, and a cluster of tadpoles is grazing on algae. All of it is visible with a net, a white tray and a bit of patience. Pond dipping is the cheapest wildlife safari on offer: no booking, no car park charges, and it works just as well with a seven-year-old as it does with a seventy-year-old. It also teaches you to slow down. You cannot rush a tray of pond water; the creatures inside need a minute or two to settle before they reveal themselves.

The Kit You Actually Need

You do not need much, and you almost certainly should not spend a fortune. A white tray is the single most important item, because a white background throws every tiny movement into relief. An old washing-up bowl works perfectly well.

• A fine-mesh net — around 1mm mesh, with a long handle. Coarse garden netting lets the small things slip through, and the small things are usually the interesting ones.
• A white tray or shallow bowl, filled with just 2–3cm of pond water.
• A magnifying glass or a cheap hand lens. This is what turns a speck into a creature with legs, gills and attitude.
• A plastic spoon, pipette or small paintbrush for lifting creatures gently without crushing them. Never use tweezers.
• Wellington boots, and a towel in the car for afterwards.
• A local identification guide or a folded piece of paper with a few common names scribbled on it.

Skip glass jars. They heat up fast, offer no white background, and one clumsy moment ends the trip.

Choosing a Pond and a Spot

Garden ponds, village ponds, park ponds, canal arms and the shallow edges of larger lakes all work. The best dipping spots share three things: shallow water, some submerged or floating plants, and a soft, leafy bottom rather than bare gravel. Plants mean shelter, and shelter means life.

Approach from a bank that is flat and firm. Avoid steep, crumbling edges and anything overhung with nettles or brambles. If you are with children, agree the rule before you start: nobody leans over the water, and nobody goes near the edge alone. Dipping is a supervised activity, always. Deep silt at the margins is genuinely dangerous, and it is far deeper than it looks.

How to Dip Without Doing Damage

The technique is simple, but gentleness matters more than technique. Sweep the net through the water in a slow figure of eight, just above the bottom, working through weed rather than dragging across it. One firm sweep through open water, then a short drag along the surface of the silt, is plenty.

Lift the net without letting water drain through it for long, then turn it inside out over your tray and rinse it gently in the pond water you have already collected. Wait. Count to sixty. Watch for movement rather than shape, because half of what you have caught will be the colour of tea and the size of a comma. When something moves, use the spoon or brush to transfer it into a spare drop of water for a closer look.

Twenty minutes of dipping is a good session. Any longer and the tray starts to warm up and the creatures begin to suffer.

What You Might Find

Spring is frog and toad season, so expect tadpoles in clouds, and frogspawn in jelly masses from late February onwards. By early summer, dragonfly and damselfly larvae are the prize finds. Damselfly larvae have three leaf-shaped tails; dragonfly larvae have a blunt, five-pointed end and a hinged lower jaw, the "mask", which they can shoot forward to grab prey. Watching one do that is the highlight of many a childhood.

Other regulars include:

• Great diving beetles — glossy, olive-black and surprisingly large, along with their fierce larvae, known as water tigers.
• Water boatmen — lesser ones swim upside down, greater ones the right way up and can nip.
• Pond skaters, which skim the surface and are best left in the net for a moment and admired before release.
• Water slaters, flat and grey-brown, and caddisfly larvae in little cases built from grit, twigs or leaves.
• Freshwater shrimps, mayfly nymphs, leeches and snails — humble, but a sign of clean, healthy water.

Newts turn up often. Smooth and palmate newts are best admired in the tray and never handled; great crested newts are legally protected and must not be disturbed at all.

Putting Everything Back

Return every creature to the exact spot you took it from, within twenty minutes or so. Tip the tray gently rather than pouring, so nothing is stranded in mud at the pond edge. Never move water or creatures between ponds — that is how diseases and invasive plants spread, and it can wipe out a small pond's whole population. Rinse your net and tray in tap water and let them dry before you visit somewhere else.

Then wash your hands. Pond water is full of life, and not all of it belongs on a sandwich.