While I haven’t blogged about our pond as much as I originally intended, I have mentioned it before so I’m sure you are already aware of its existence. There has been a development over the last few months that I haven’t mentioned. An evil development.

About two months ago we noticed that the fish were hiding in their “tunnel” (a 6″ wide pipe about two feet long underneath the waterfall for them to hide in) all day for a day or two in a row. We concluded that they were hiding from something. Fortunately, our dogs have been good to not bother the fish so it wasn’t them. The active theory was a racoon.

We were out as a family and came home one day and saw a rather large haron flying away from our yard. It’d didn’t take much deduction to make it our suspect #1. Shortly thereafter, one of our two butterfly koi was missing. A week or two after that, the other one was gone.

Research began on the predator and learned that they are one of the more common visitors for pond owners. We also learned that they are quite crafty even going so far as to vomit into the water to lure out less cautious fish. We may be missing more but with about 27 (mostly goldfish around 4-5″) it’s hard to keep an accurate count.

We have determined the best defense is to get ourselves a scarecrow. We should receive it this week and shall hopefully reduce the tension among the inhabitants.

I also need to get some more fish.