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 was an exciting community-led initiative which took place in West Somerset during 2025. Coordinated by Somerset Wildlife Trust volunteer Elizabeth Atkinson, it aimed 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 we have developed a 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!
Add your pond to the map!
The project included the creation of a digital map of local ponds to track these important wildlife habitats and the species they support. Our map remains live so you can add your pond, or a local pond you are familiar with, using a simple survey.
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.
Ponds Alive! involved 375 adults and 230 children and promoted the creation, enhancement, engagement with and recording of wildlife ponds through multiple approaches:
- Distribution of 20 free pond-making kits (barrels and dug ponds) plus plants to community and educational organisations and individual ‘pond ambassadors’
- 29 pond investigations with children and adults
- 7 pond creation events
- 3 public talks
- 2 village pond walks
- 3 memory workshops with elders in social and care settings
- Stalls at 7 public events
- Creation of an ongoing digital map of local ponds; Ponds Alive! Map via a community survey: Ponds Alive! Survey and Monitoring of wildlife ponds with a dedicated iNaturalist project: Ponds Alive! iNat project
- A 6-minute film showcasing project work in one school: Final Ponds Alive! at Tivington Farm
- Wide-ranging publicity through social media, local publications and enquiries
Watch the film produced by MED Theatre Young Company with Tivington Farm School and the National Trust.
Common frog. Image: Elizabeth Atkinson
Ponds Alive! was 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 was delivered by The National Lottery Heritage Fund in partnership with Natural England and the Environment Agency.
Project team
Elizabeth Atkinson
Elizabeth Atkinson oversaw the West Somerset Wildways community wildlife project for the Trust from 2023 and coordinated the Ponds Alive! Project.
