The pond at PARC is my favourite landscape feature. As a child I was obsessed with ponds and really wanted to find a newt, especially a crested newt. All of my uncles in England had ornamental ponds and they were a highlight for me whenever we visited family. Whereas my uncle’s ponds were ornamental with plants precisely placed for aesthetic reasons, the wetland feature at PARC will have a wilder look.

At a recent visit to the PARC site it was exciting to see the start of the construction of the pond.  The wetland area was a big mud pit with excavators running back and forth but it took no imagination to see the pond’s size and shape. The basic contours already are in place, as are the drainage pipes to channel water. Construction was well underway on the walkways – they will be a great place to view the pond and its inhabitants.

Unlike my uncle’s manicured ponds, the PARC pond will be surrounded by plants down to the water’s edge, obscuring the shoreline. There will be plenty of shoreline shelter, so you will need to look carefully to see insects and snails near the water’s edge. Larger animals will be easier to see but you will need a water sample to see the microscopic plankton community under a magnifying glass or microscope. You will also have to look a bit more carefully for my favourite plants – the scouring rushes, mosses, club mosses and liverworts.

The PARC pond will catch rainwater in winter and will buffer extremes in water flow from the site, at the same time supporting more and more wildlife as time goes on. Even dry, the pond will be alive with insects and plants, and without a doubt, this landscape feature will support an invader from another Mediterranean climate – common wall lizards.

Bird watchers will love the PARC pond. Birds from all over the neighbourhood will stop by for a drink, and as long as there are small birds, predators will follow. Cooper’s hawks, sharp-shinned hawks, and merlin will stop for a quick snack. I saw only two birds there during my last visit, an American crow and a Brewer’s blackbird – so that’s two species and the pond isn’t even finished. At night we can expect owls, raccoons and bats to appear – and I’d be shocked if mule deer steer clear of the landscaping.

As the PARC project nears completion, I can’t wait to see the pond finished. I’m looking forward to many lunch breaks outside, watching  the landscape mature into a complex community. Back in England I failed to find a newt in my uncle’s garden ponds – but maybe some lucky visitor will find one at PARC.