Anna Williams
Ponds Alive!
An exciting community-led initiative to promote, create, enhance and record ponds in West Somerset.
Ponds Alive!
Ponds are vital freshwater habitats for a diverse range of species including amphibians like frogs and toads, mammals such as bats, hedgehogs and water voles, and a long list of exciting plants and insects. Unfortunately, across the UK, we’re losing our ponds — with half a million thought to have been lost over the last 100 years — and many of the species that depend on them are now in decline due to habitat loss and other factors including pollution and climate change.
Our ‘Ponds Alive!’ project is an exciting community-led initiative taking place in West Somerset. Coordinated by Somerset Wildlife Trust volunteer Elizabeth Atkinson, it aims to help revitalise, enhance, and increase local freshwater habitats, while also encouraging more people to get involved by creating ponds and sharing their finds through citizen science to help us learn more about West Somerset’s ponds and pond life.
Through this project I hope to develop a growing community of pond-watchers, pond-makers and Pond ambassadors. One of the single most important things you can do for wildlife in your own space is to create a pond, however small. And we need to enhance our local ponds so that wildlife really flourishes in them, from frogs to plants to insects!
There will be plenty of events and workshops for people to get involved in throughout the year, along with lots of other opportunities to find out more about these essential habitats, with resources available to help communities and individuals create their own ponds from scratch! Free pond-making kits will be available to individuals as well as community organisations, schools, nurseries, and residential homes on a first-come first-served basis, on condition that anyone receiving a pond kit pledges to monitor their pond using iNaturalist!
Anyone can get involved from the word go - please contact Elizabeth on wswildways@somersetwildlife.org
Frogspawn clumps of Common frogs (Rana temporaria) in pond created by Eurasian beavers (Castor fiber) on a small woodland stream within a large woodland enclosure with a beaver-gnawed branch in the background, Devon Beaver Project, Devon Wildlife Trust, Devon, UK, February. - false
Ponds are essential habitats
Even small ponds can support a wealth of species and collectively, ponds play a key role in supporting freshwater wildlife.
Common darter dragonfly {Sympetrum striolatum}, resting on reed by water's edge, Little Bradley Ponds, Bovey Tracy, Devon, UK. July 2011. - Ross Hoddinott/2020VISION
Pond species
Look out for amphibians and insects with terrestrial life stages in the shallow margins and nearby plant cover.
Common frog. Image: Elizabeth Atkinson
Ponds Alive! is funded by the National Trust’s Freshwater Community Grant in partnership with the Species Survival Fund, which was developed by Defra and its Arm’s-Length Bodies. It is being delivered by The National Lottery Heritage Fund in partnership with Natural England and the Environment Agency.
Project team
Elizabeth Atkinson
Elizabeth Atkinson has been overseeing the West Somerset Wildways community wildlife project for the Trust since 2023 and will coordinate the Ponds Alive! Project. To find out more about the project, add your pond to our digital map or apply for a free pond kit, email Elizabeth at wswildways@somersetwildlife.org
