It has been over two months since I wrote about the waterfall pond, with its wide range of fish, black and white catfish, red carp though the four fish were of four different shades, from a bright red to one that just had tinges of pink on an essentially white skin, and seven fish that I thought of as Malavi of varying sizes.

There have been losses since then. One of the white catfish stopped coming to the top when I dropped feed in, and lurked at the bottom and seemed very thin, and after a couple of days in which I worried about him, he died. After that the other one was slow to come up, staying most of the time in the little grotto where most of the black catfish lurk, though they all glide up like aeroplanes when food is dropped in, and I have often counted all seven though more often, as they twist in and out amidst each other, I can be sure of just six.

The remaining white catfish did come up for food until about a week ago, when he seemed to prefer to stay down below, and I thought he would go the way of his mate. Indeed there were a couple of days in which he did not emerge, and I thought that was it, but then to my relief he suddenly reappeared, and actually came up quite quickly. The first picture here features him, with three black catfish around and below him.

In that picture you also see two of the red carp, sadly the only ones left. On the same day I saw the dead catfish in the water, seen in the second picture here before he was buried, I also saw a little carp that seemed to have been decapitated. I think it was the polecat that had struck again, finding a gap in the net and getting at part of the poor creature, while the body was still beyond reach because of the net.

I show what was left, as it was buried. It was only the next day that I thought to check, and I could not see the carp that was only barely red.

You can see what I mean about his colour in the fourth picture here, where the fish furthest to the right can be contrasted with the one just below the big red carp. The latter I think it was that I buried, and you see him again in the fifth picture, next to the big red chap and the other survivor whose shade was in between.

In that picture you also see some catfish, black and white, though only a single malavi. But there are more of these in the fourth picture.

Those were jolly days in that pond, and though there are still many fish there as you see in the last picture here, without the four shades of red, despite so many Malavi, it looks less lively.