Dear friends,
We would love to hear about your current BioNova® projects. Please send Ryan, ryan@bionovanaturalpools.com, any information and pictures of your projects and we will gladly put them in the newsletter to share with all of the dealers. Thank you and we hope to see your inputs soon!
Here’s what’s happening at BioNova® Natural Pools North America…
Protect Your NSP From Blue Herons
The great blue heron is a large wading bird common near the shores of open water and in wetlands over most of North America. They are a large bird with a typical head-to-tail length of 3 to 4.5 feet, a wingspan of 5.5 to 6.5 feet, a height of 3.5 to 4.5 feet, and weigh between 4 to 8 pounds.
While they are a very majestic bird they can be very harmful to NSPs. Like all waterfowl, their droppings can contain e. coli, salmonella, campylobacter, and cryptosporidium. Their feeding habits can also hurt an NSPs natural aquatic balance by eating important organisms within the ecosystem. At our installation in Princeton we had a heron come by a season ago and nearly eradicated the frog population there, and the owner loves her frogs!
The primary food for the blue heron is small fish, however their primary prey is variable based on availability and abundance and will easily adapt to eating aquatic insects, tadpoles, and frogs, all of which can be found and are very beneficial to an NSP, so it is important to deter herons so problems in water quality and safety don’t occur.
Herons don’t dive into the water from flight, as many seabirds do. Instead, they land on a waters bank and step into the shallow waters on the edge, usually less than 20 inches deep. They feed during both the night and the day, but especially around dawn and dusk. They will typically sit and wait patiently for a snack to swim by. Another hunting technique is wading slowly with its long legs through shallow water and quickly spearing fish or frogs with its long, sharp bill.
Tip 4: The last easy way to protect your NSP this winter is especially important if you own a BioNova® NSP with a regeneration zone. A regeneration zone must have special attention paid to the plants that live there and help purify the water. This means that plants must be correctly cut back beneath the water line to prevent inclement weather damage. A BioNova® approved aquatic technician will take care to trim the plant growth so that the roots can regenerate fully when the warm weather arrives in spring and summer.
Measures to Protect Your NSP
Fishing Line
Since herons don’t dive into deep water and stay near the edges of a pool or pond you can deter them by just addressing the shoreline of an NSP. Fishing line is a very cheap option and easy to install. Drive some stakes into the ground around your pond. Then take a strong fishing line and weave a kind of crisscross pattern between the stakes. Before installation, you should drill some holes at different heights into the stakes first. Then you can pull the fishing line through and fasten it with a knot.
A Blue Heron Decoy
If the NSP has turned into a dining table for a heron, buying a heron statue and mounting it near the pond can be a solution. Herons are very territorial birds. They each have their own hunting ground and hunt alone and do not want to fight for their fishing spot, so if they see a heron decoy near the pond, they will seek an alternative body of water. However, herons are very intelligent and will catch on quickly if a decoy stays in one spot for too long. So be sure to move it regularly.
Stay Safe and Healthy.
We hope you all continue to stay healthy during these trying times and wish all of our BioNova® Dealers our best to you and your families.
Questions, Concerns, Thoughts
As always, we encourage you to contact us and share your thoughts, questions, and concerns with BioNova®. We are available to assist you in any way we can. Feel free to email me directly with photos, project updates, testimonials, etc., and we’ll include them in an upcoming Newsletter.
Respectfully,
Ryan Harmer
BioNova® Natural Pools
ryan@bionovanaturalpools.com
609-318-4707
