Gloom

Major gloom around the pond today. An all day drizzle reduced Mother Nature’s palette to a few muted colors. Mostly grays. Probably my imagination, but even the trees seemed bummed. Can trees actually slouch? Nah.
The weather didn’t bother the four mallards who splashed down in mid-afternoon. Given the visibility, they had probably been flying on instruments. Bless their intrepid little winged souls. They explored the pond and were still earth bound at dark, possibly for the night. Even ducks sometimes cancel flights during inclement weather.
Ducks weren’t the only local critters to sample the soggy day. Four does strolled out of the haze during the afternoon and grazed in the front yard. These four have been hanging around the area for a couple of weeks. They’ve probably joined forces to assert their feminine rights during the rutting season. They’ll be gone in a week or so. We’ve become foster parents to the furry folks.
We haven’t seen a bear since May. We could hang out our bird feeders. But the last time we did that we found muddy bear paw prints all over our kitchen windows. The feeders–or the remnants thereof–wound up distorted piles of rubble in the nearby woods. If we want to see a bear I guess we’ll have to travel south and hang out around some New Jersey dumpsters