stephbg | Wildlife of the day: Baby fishies!

Was *very* excited this afternoon to discover two baby fish in the pond. No idea yet whether they're minnows or perch, but as

leecetheartist has reported baby minnows in her pond appearing just yesterday it strikes me as more likely these are baby minnows. Statistically too, 15 minnows would stand a better chance of reproducing than 3 perch, particularly as Disco Stu was brought in for stud duties well into the season. Now I look back on my discovery of non-snail eggs on the pump housing even then I thought them more likely to be minnows.

Lives! Tiny lives!

Baby photos were attempted without much hope - these are extremely small beasties, and fast moving and under water to boot. But since when did picture quality ever deter proud grandparents?

Here are the twins:

OK, so maybe scale is a little difficult to determine. Here's one with a grown up relative:

Grown up relative being about an inch long. Try this for scale:

i.e. not very big at all.

I do hope they survive and I get to watch them grow. That was one of my greatest pleasures when the goldfish bred at my old place. There were so many eggs I brought some inside to incubate in a bowl and keep a close eye on them as they developed, and most excitingly as they developed their individual colouration.

It gives me enormous pleasure to think that I have provided an environment good enough to encourage creatures to breed. Sure, they're not exactly pandas, but it means I must be doing something right, and I intend to savour the victory. (I don't feel I can claim much of a hand in successful water snail reproduction). I look forward to Winter and the possibility of frogs :-)