Frozen Tadpoles and The Egret Visits Again

Here are two great pictures of the Egret as he strolls at the shallow end of the large pond. It was bright and sunny about 1:45 this afternoon with the temperature about 42 degrees. It has been quite cold for the several weeks with the high temperature rarely getting above 40 degrees and lows in the teens or 20s. The past week we have seen the Egret several days but didn't get any pictures. Today we got lucky.

The tadpoles are having a really difficult time as their pond has seriously frozen over. With the sun, the edges thaw some and some tadpoles come to the edge to gulp some air. Today it melted enough for me to lift off the cap of ice which was an inch and a half thick. To my dismay (and probably theirs too) many tadpoles were frozen into this block of ice. A bunch of them were floating lifeless on the water but some where still alive. I moved the live ones I could catch to the small pond which doesn't freeze as easily.