So I am semi-retired now and am spending a bit of my mornings on the pond. I started keeping a pond journal, but today it occurred to me that it would be great if others added their observations and we could share what we've seen and noticed.
With that, I'll start with my first few pages of my journal.
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Thursday, September 20, 2012
Ah, retirement…
Doesn't get much better than an autumn dawn paddle on a misty pond!
Then I watched the muskrat make his busy trips from one side to the
other. The phoebes were making their chirping call so loudly that Blake
started growling!
There was a redtail having an altercation with some crows - looked
like she was chasing them, though.
THEN, I watched two otters play for about 10 minutes. They'd
surface nose to nose, then dive again. Then come up and wrestle.
Then off to chase under water. A third otter came and just checked
in a couple times, but didn't play (mom?).
One of them spied my boat and their heads and half of the body came
up out of the water staring at me. They moved closer and closer.
Curious. Finally they were about 10 feet from the bow of my boat,
coming up and staring. Blake was not happy about this, but he kept quiet
for me. Finally they left, and after visiting the wood ducks, I came in
so the critters could have their pond.
Magical
morning.
Friday,
September 21, 2012
Carol joined
me this morning. I managed to see the
brown furry thing that goes back and forth across the pond just after dawn well
enough today to decide that it was a muskrat.
The head/body was smaller than the otter, but today I saw the tail. We saw one of the cormorants and some wood
ducks, a couple of phoebes, but they seem to be leaving – cool and not many
bugs left. No otters.
Sunday,
September 22, 2012
Linda & I (and Blake) went out today, and while trying to get a
better view of the osprey, we saw 4 or 5 otters!!. I spotted a
disturbance in the water among the water chestnuts and I watched, then saw
another black back and another. AH! An otter! Hmph.
Gone. But there is motion in the tree that has fallen down in the
water. Sure enough, among the leaves I found this large, wet furry thing!
Mama otter. Pretty soon a little head showed up and swam up to
mama. Then another and one more! Three younguns. They nuzzled
in. Awww...
Before long mama
dove and disappeared, but the young ones started playing in the weeds. I
had brought my little camera and got it out, but Blake spotted the critters,
too! He wanted to go play!! I did manage to get a bit of footage
(hmmm inchage? It is about 10 seconds), but you can hear Blake
whining and see what his wiggling was doing to my steadiness - it is hard
enough to shoot in a canoe. :-)
While I was managing the dog & camera, Linda thought she saw
FIVE of them! Mama came up and was
hissing at us - get OUT OF HERE!
Amid
this excitement, we also did see an osprey – first one I’ve seen this year and
I’m not even sure we saw any last year.
It has been a bad couple of years on the pond because of the water
chestnut invasion.
Monday,
September 24, 2012
Another very special morning! Chilly, 40 degrees, and very misty on the
pond. Blake & I were out in the
pre-sunrise dawn light. We watched the muskrat,
who was busy heading across the pond. I
think he saw us though, ‘cuz he suddenly turned around and went home. Maybe something else was there. OH!
That’s where I saw the otter later.
Maybe that spooked him, because we really weren’t very obvious or making
sound. The muskrats move SOOO fast!
We paddled toward the dam,
stopping to take a few pictures of the sunrise. We saw the east end heron and
then later, saw the west end heron. I
steered away from the heron so that we wouldn’t disrupt it in its morning
vigilance.
As we came back up the
south side of the pond I watched the kingfisher for a while; he certainly was
making a racket with his rattling cry! I
am still hoping to some day see one catch a fish… Speaking of racket, the redtail was calling from
one side and the crows cawing from the east end.
As we approached the heavy water chestnuts, I
was scanning to see if I could spot the busy muskrat (saw him again later as I
was bringing the canoe up). I turned to
look ahead in the chestnuts and there was the black back of an otter! But what’s that big patch of white? Must have a piece of vegetation stuck on her
head. Dove again, up again, dove again,
up again, and still the white. OH! It is breakfast! It has a fish! It went into the bushes and probably up on
shore. I didn’t bother it by following,
but went off to look at more wood ducks.
(More tomorrow - I've got a vid of the harvester working on the water chestnuts that I'll post tomorrow)
