Pond beauties in winter.

I will show some life in a pond under a weak sun, and also a nice surprise.

The water in this pond is clean due to a great filtering system, and the light was ideal to get some of the pond's habitants on camera. Not always that there are fish in this pond, as kingfisher and cormorant birds clear it out. But on this occasion the pond was well stocked with some beautiful fish, and as a surprise with something else that I will show you down below. We come here often in summer, and although I took some photos of the fish the light was never this good due to the blazing African sun. Winter brought along some soft light and you will see that the pictures of the fish are much clearer.
But I talk too much and let me show you what I have to share.

They are supposed to be goldfish, but this white fish has never heard that name. I cannot do them the disservice by calling them whitefish:))
I suppose they are some type of Koi fish.

I'm not even going to try to name these, but they are all lovely.

And here was the surprise, as normally there are no dragonflies here in the winter season.
The dragonflies, Cape Skimmers (Orthetrum julia capicola), are only supposed to appear in early spring season, but this couple was laying eggs.

A few more below, and then another strange dragonfly appearance.

A Red-veined Dropwing Dragonfly (Trithemis arteriosa) sat on the coping of the pool. Just imagine that, as they are all supposed to be gone in winter and here, they appeared near the end of June.

I have to admit that I know the dragonflies, but that I am not an expert on fish names, although I was a freshwater fisherman long ago. I normally only caught Carp and Barbel (Catfish), but these fancy little ones in the post I do not know. All that I know is that they are beautiful and I am glad they have plenty of space to move around. Frogs in the pond also jump up occasionally to the surface and I presume that is to gulp some fresh oxygenated air but try as I might I can never get them appearing above the surface, as they are very fast. Maybe I will get lucky someday, to get one on camera. Not that I am dissatisfied, as there is much else that I can get in the pond. I like to see the fish saliently swimming along, as I think that it also eases my mind as things are as they are supposed to be. Until the birds arrive, of course, as then there are some serious upheavals that disturb the peace.
Such is life.

I hope you enjoyed the pictures and the story.

Photos by Zac Smith. All-Rights-Reserved.

Camera: Canon PowershotSX70HS Bridge camera.

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