Sitting Targets

You can’t see much on this photograph, but that’s the point, or the fishes’ point. A couple of weeks ago I noticed one of the fish lying on its own in a little gully next to a clump of reed which is where they tend to go when poorly. I popped it into the quarantine tank and thought it looked bloated, which is never a good sign – dropsy is often fatal in fish, as it means they’re retaining water because of their kidneys not working properly. Well, my fish hadn’t yet reached the stage of porcupining (when its scales stand out from the body as seen from above) and over the next few days, while it clearly wasn’t happy, it looked a bit less like a bream and more like a common goldfish again. More time in the tank didn’t change its sluggish and lethargic habits so eventually, with no clear sign of illness, I thought there was no reason not to replace it in the pond.

And that’s now where it is. Its sluggishness is, in fact, shared by the other fish: pond goldfish don’t ‘hibernate’ as such but they do slow down and stop eating apart from the occasional slurp of algae from the side of the pond. They also head for the warmest part of the pond, which in my case is under the pump. There’s just about enough room for all four, though you can sometimes see them jostling for space around the bricks which hold the pump up, including the fish that was poorly. I did read one online account from a koi keeper who described his winter-torpid fish lined up together 'like sardines in a tin', which struck me as a slightly insensitive analogy.

It is in fact just as well they are hiding: the other day I chased off a heron eyeing them with evil intent.