Wildlife pond in Belfast sink

[Crikeyblimey]

Hi. I have a Belfast sink that I was going to use for alpines but now have an urge to turn it into a small pond.

Problem is, bloody great drain hole! There’s no plug housing, just the big hole.

Any suggestions on how to make it watertight?

Also, am I on a hiding to nothing trying to make a pond out of it? Will I just end up with a sink full of stagnant water? Will it need a small pump to keep it moving or is a still pond with plants better for wildlife (appreciate I’ll need rocks in there to aid escape for critters)?

Thanks

My garden has a brick wall all the way around it. I found my frog just sat on my front door as if to say 'Can I move into my new digs' I had to pick him up open a locked gate to get him in, no idea how he knew there was a pond, I've lived here 10 years and never seen a frog before, so yes they'll come. You can get above ground ponds. Prob won't get hedgehogs etc but you'd get flying insects etc.

It does really help if it is surrounded by some vegetation though - some grass left to grow or ferns or something. They need some cover.

We now have dragonflies which is very exciting - I know for those of you with actual frogs it is small beer but we are thrilled!

Ahh brilliant, we've got a few plants in pots, I could always move them into the decking to surround the sink-pond I guess?

I shall have to broach the subject with DH. The garden is his domain and he likes things Tidy and Neat. If we had a big garden with actual grass I swear he'd be mowing stripes into it every evening.

Could you cut some small holes at the bottom of your fences to allow wildlife to move in from other gardens? You’d only need a CD sized hole. It makes a huge difference.

@VenusClapTrap not really, I'm surrounded by walls with just one fence between my only neighbour who is also walled in.

A high wall runs along the back of our gardens, we are about 5ft below the pavement level behind the gardens so we have a 4ft or so wall then a raised bed on top of that with a fence and a thick hedge.

Anyway, I have included a diagram. It's shit 😂

Yes pots surrounding the micropond will help definitely.

We went to our local nature garden and liberated 4 tadpoles and a newt. It was so coool! In a shady corner they have an old bath, covered in a pond liner full of water, weed and tadpoles/newts. They even leave out saucepans and information signs so you can take them home. I got some of the weed that @WitchWindows* has too.
They are currently lurking in the bottom but the caves we made out of old pots and then peeking looking rather cute. All in all a lovely day!
Very excited that it may also rain tomorrow, so have lots of pots at the ready!
*I know you're not meant to introduce water from other ponds, but I thought it was worth the risk.

You might want to separate the newt and the tadpoles as the tadpoles could be supper (even if they are baby newts). We have so many newts but not much in the way of frogs.

@Crikeyblimey how is your pond getting on now?

I must have a hole in mine somewhere as I'm losing a lot of water, topped it up to the brim on Saturday and already lost about 3 inches I don't think evaporation alone can account for it.

Unfortunately I found one of the frogs dried up and practically mummified on my driveway this morning. But on the plus we've had lots of dragonflys visiting.

Evaporation is proportional to surface area, obviously. So if you filled a bucket and stood it next to the pond, you could measure the level in the bucket to see how much should be lost by evaporation. If the pond goes down by more than the bucket, then you're losing water elsewhere.