Bishops Pond facts for kids

Bishops Pond (which is Pwll yr Esgob in Welsh) is a very special place in Carmarthenshire, Wales. It's right next to an old palace that used to belong to a bishop, which is now the Carmarthenshire County Museum.

Bishops Pond is a type of lake called an "oxbow lake." Imagine a winding river; sometimes a big bend gets cut off from the main river. When this happens, it forms a separate, curved lake – that's an oxbow lake! This pond gets filled with water in winter when the nearby River Tywi floods the valley. In summer, the water level goes down. Over many years, the pond is slowly changing. It's going from a lake to a swamp, then a marsh, and eventually it might even become a meadow. This happens because water plants grow a lot, and old plant bits build up in the water.

What Makes Bishops Pond Special?

Bishops Pond is known as the best example of an oxbow lake in West Wales. It's also special because of a plant called reed sweet-grass. This plant grows a lot here, and it's usually only found in the Tywi Valley and along the coast.

Plants You Can Find

Around the edges of the lake, you'll see many different plants. These include reeds, sedges, and grasses like the tall reed sweet-grass. You might also spot bladder-sedge and branched bur-reed. In the summer, bright yellow water lilies float on the surface of the water. Other plants growing near the pond include water pepper, small bur-reed, and European bur-reed. Look closely and you might even find northern marsh yellowcress and trifid bur-marigold. On the bank of the lake, there are also interesting fern fronds called adders-tongue fern. Many different kinds of trees grow around the lake too. In winter, a large island forms at the western end of the pond.

Animals Living in the Pond

The lake is home to many types of fish. You can find tench, European perch, common roach, northern pike, eels, common minnows, and three-spined sticklebacks here. It's possible the pond was once used for fishing.

Many birds also live or visit Bishops Pond. Birds that build their nests here include the colorful kingfisher, white-throated dipper, mallard ducks, Eurasian coots, common moorhens, and graceful mute swans. Other birds, like the little grebe, come to visit in winter. An interesting moth called Donacaula forficella was also seen at Bishops Pond. This was the first time it had been recorded so far inland in Carmarthenshire!