RECENT SIGHTINGS

Haven't been out and down by the pond much in the last couple of weeks - hope that will change!  But, it is gorgeous from in the house, up here on the hill.  A few recent sightings: 

• Carol D saw a beaver sitting on the ice eating yesterday morning.  We are in the mid-section of the pond.  I think I might have seen it again this AM, but couldn't get my binocs on it quickly enough to be sure.
• Both Carol D and Linda & I saw an adult fox go through our yards a few days ago and then Linda & I saw a young one today in our yard, then it went down and sat down to look a the pond for a while.  Meanwhile, Blake (our dog) went crazy and I think the fox heard it as it passed through our yard, down the driveway and down the street - I think it lives across the street in the hollow.  I saw tracks in the snow after the Dec. 3rd snow that crossed the street from our house and went down into the hollow.  That is where the den was a couple years ago.  The youngster this morning had a lighter colored back right foot - the others were black, but this one more mottled and grey or white.
• Carol S said that she saw two kits playing in her yard after the November snow (8th or so?)  Probably one of them was the one we saw today.  
• The great blue heron is not a regular visitor right now, but I saw it on our landing a couple days ago.  But, I also saw one sitting on the ball field over by the Fairbank Center!!  Ummm... the ball field?  Baseball season is over!
• Lots of black ducks around still
• The muskrats are very busy going back and forth in the morning and evening - sometimes mid-day.  

Always interesting around here!!

ICY POND

Wasn't the snow pretty this weekend?  I loved the way it coated the ice on the pond and collected the crevices of the tree bark.

Pond in the Snow

I found that there were tracks in the soft, slushy ice.  From a distance, up the hill, I thought they were probably duck trails.  As I got closer, I realized that they were thinner than a duck would leave and some were short and right in the middle of the ice, and one started really thin close to the shore, then got a little bigger as it went out, then disappeared, but you could see a faint change in the ice beyond that.  I think it must be muskrat trails.  The trail that goes to the upper left corner, past the thicker ice, heads out the same direction that the muskrats frequently go.

Muskrat (?) trails

I watched a pair of black ducks land on the pond this morning.  Descending into the thick fog that was over the ice, they totally disappeared from view and made no splash and very little disruption in the water.  I only knew they had landed when the swam out of the mist. I am always amazed at how smoothly they land (in contrast with some other ducks!).  We seem to have a lot of black ducks at the moment; I'm seeing very few mallards in this part of the pond, but many blacks.

We also have the white-throated sparrows who have returned to our yard.  It's funny, but I rarely see them during the summer; mostly they show up in the cold weather.

White-throated Sparrow

Still lots going on out there, even though we mostly hunker down inside.