Another Year Ends

Working on the ponds in winter requires special gloves. Today I was cleaning leaves out of the frog pond where the water temperature was below 50 degrees. At least we had a small warm up because last week there was some ice on the pond.

With the end of the year, it's time to publish the next Pond Diary. The Pond Diary 2008.

The Hawk on the Surfboard

The Hawk seem to like the Styrofoam floats I use on the pond to protect the goldfish when the heavy plant cover is missing. You can see his claws digging into the float to keep his balance. In my opinion, his claws digging into the Styrofoam is preferable to the claws digging into one or our goldfish. The second picture shows the Hawk flying off after leaving the float. The pictures shows his tail feathers spread and angled down to get maximum lift for the takeoff.

Beauty in the Winter

A long time ago, my mother gave us some plants. I can't remember the name but they spend the summers outside growing long green leaves and shooting off new plants similar to the spider plant process. In the winter, they spend time inside near the windows protected from the cold outside. As a winter time bonus they produce delicate tiny yellow flowers. The flowers only last one day and then die. We had a bonus last week with three blooms on the same stem at the same time.

Almost Frozen Goldfish

It's winter time at the pond. With the recent days in the 40s and nights in the 20s, the pond temperature is about 45 degrees and all the plants are either dead or hibernating. With the water temperature under 50 degrees the Goldfish just sleep most of the time. They just hover an inch or two above the bottom of the pond and they are very slow to scurry away when I take pictures. While some of these Goldfish are pretty big, we still miss the really big ones that were gobbled down by the Great Blue Heron in May.

Low Flying Squirrel

Another great picture from the wildlife camera. The squirrels run around the pond area all the time and we get many pictures. But this is the first one where the squirrel was caught in a midair pose as he jumped from the patio to the deck. I can't tell if his front feet have touched the deck but he is close. Later that day, actually about midnight a cute bunny is sitting in almost the same spot.

Dancing With the Crows

Every year we have several visits by large flocks of what I think are crows. This year they decided to visit the pond area and the wildlife camera was ready. These pictures while not real clear caught the crows in various in flight positions. The first one is really cool with the crow flying straight up with its tail feathers spread providing stability on the way up. The other shows two crows performing some intricate sort of mid air dance.

Split Second Double Take

When I checked the wildlife camera the other day, I did a double take for just a split second. I saw these pictures of giant birds next to the pond. Of course, my brain kicked in almost immediately and I knew these were the Heron statues that joined the pond scape a year ago. The statues had been snuggled in with the Elephant Ears which have now been knocked down the recent hard freeze so they are now the last thing standing.