Easier for the mysteriously appearing fish to be hatched from an egg on a plant or from the koi in the pond than a live bearer just dropped into the pond from ? Of course if it is a live bearer it could already be pregnant...

Hi Lisa, Thats an amazing story about the grackles! Though, it doesnt surprise me much because Ive seen similar smart behavior from them and from Curve-billed Thrashers. Both of them seem to be very smart birds. Thereve been studies on crows that show they make tools, make plans to figure out problems, and so on. IIRC, they were at least around 3-4 year old human level in thinking. Most humans would be surprised by that! Especially my mother-in-law-to-be whom called grackles "junk birds" which I found shocking as a concept. I understand the worry over native vs. exotic species But "junk"?! When I first saw the flock of grackles last year, it was like the Hitchcock movie The Birds! There were suddenly two decent sized trees totally black with grackles and they were all squawking about something. I thought it might be a baby, went out to see, and though most of them flew to a safer distance, a few did stay to see what I was doing. I didnt find a baby but they left shortly after with me none-the-wiser to what they were going on about :P I just want you to know, Im not anti-grackle. I love all creatures, though I did kill a couple of Black Widows last year, I usually move insects that scare me :) Either that or encourage them to go elsewhere. When we had a HUGE ants nest in our walkway, (the giant black ants that bite), I started putting sunflower seeds down so the doves would keep the area busy. The ants soon moved, taking some sunflower seeds with them! Id read to pour boiling water down the hole but thats just horrible to me. Anyway, most of our tadpoles are gone, so Im not going to net the pond. Since the grackles bully the other birds we got some big bowls and put them on the other side of the yard and moved our birdbaths into the shade over there, too. The other birds have found them and seem grateful. The weather here is *so* harsh, and with drought even worse. There really is a desperate need for water. It would be nice if it didnt draw *every* cat within 10 block radius since they sometimes kill birds. Its so heartbreaking :( But since we have the shadiest yard with the most water for at least a one-mile radius, we probably get the worst of it. Totally off topic, but now thinking about it, before we took in our cat that was abandoned (in the desert! in the summer! ugh humans!) the cat situation was a lot worse. He is *completely crazy* and tries our patience to the absolute limit, daily, and now has to be kept in until after sunset because he was killing birds Probably because he cant get over being abandoned and starving. He will fight any cat over his "territory," even our other semi-feral cat we found here years ago. This drives us mad, but maybe his craziness has paid off for us in the other cats killing birds area as weve had fewer cats hanging around probably not wanting to deal with him! Take care, -A

I have mosquito fish in my pond as well as Koi and goldfish and a year after adding them I panicked because the mosquito fish seemed to be taking over. I scooped hundreds out and got rid of them. Catching them with traps or scooping them will do nothing because you will never get all of them so they will just come back. But in my case they eventually have balanced out. I assume the goldfish and Koi eat the fry and keep the herd in check because I have ignored them for years now and they have not gotten excessive.

Hey morganjack...they will love to eat them...you need not do anything.