I’ve loosened our garden’s reins and let it run free as an experiment to see how much wildness might return to it from the surrounding fenland, woodland and grassland. In the spring I laid aside my weeding fork, made a tiny pond from an old cattle sink, planted seedlings of knapweed, cornflower and borage, dialled down my urge for neatness, stood back and watched.
The wildlife didn’t dawdle shyly at the perimeter. A companionable flock of house sparrows, a kaleidoscope of hoverfly and bee species, and a family of bank voles have staked their claims on these few square metres of soil, yet I knew the pond would take a little longer to establish and find its balance. I helped it along with a scoop of mud from a fenland ditch, a bundle of oxygenating hornwort and a small jamjar of wriggling tadpoles.
In 1978, beside my grandad’s pond in suburban Liverpool, I saw a movement among the ferns and found a frog the size of a dolly mixture. I was six. I held it reverently, marvelling at its tininess, my gaze moving between an adult frog whose head peeped from the surface of the pond and its unfeasibly minute replica on my hand. I reeled at this process: adult frog-frogspawn-tadpole-froglet. It was my first taste of the intense wonder of nature, and my mind was giddy as though I’d been on a roundabout for too long.
As spring turned to summer, sightings of our tadpoles became scarce. Some succumbed to a predatory water beetle who had stowed away in the ditch mud, and a few were picked off by our resident blackbird. As the marginal plants spread, glimpses of the survivors were restricted to an occasional shimmer at the pond’s meniscus. In recent weeks all had been still, and I worried about pollywog peril.
Then, last week, comes a call from the garden. My youngest daughter exclaims excitedly, hops from foot to foot, points at the pond. There: a perfect, jewel-like, lilliputian frog clambering on a buttercup leaf. Awe and delight flood her face as history repeats itself. We gaze at its miniature toes, its enamel-like eyes, at this small scrap of exquisite wildness.
