Things around the pond seem to have been happening at warp speed during the last few days. Turn my back and I miss some of Mother Nature’s finest acts. So there’s a very good chance that there will be some gaps in this account.
But how could I miss the bright scarlet, ready to burst buds of the swamp maples. “Swamp” maples. Always struck me as an unfit name for such a beautiful harbinger of spring. Yet it occurs to me that swamps yield other beautiful things. Water lilies. Spanish moss. The great white egret. Even Hideaway Pond was once a swamp. Thus, all hail the humble swamp maple. Long may she bloom.
Daffodils and forsythia are just coming into full flower, as has the overgrown Andromeda near the studio. A robin has taken up residence in a nearby pine. The cardinals have weathered the winter and decided to hang around to start a new family. And the goldfinches are gradually changing color from winter’s drab gray to gold.
The Canada geese, of course, are a constant presence throughout all other events. As ornery and obstreperous as ever, they deserve only brief mention. Pretty. Yes. But they consider themselves to be the rock stars of the avian set. Very unpleasant company. With the digestive system of a Howitzer.
This afternoon , a six point buck arrived with three lady friends . They broke for lunch near the ledge before disappearing into the woods. It’s being spring, who knows what went on in there. All four re-emerged two hours later. No smiles or sly grins, so I guess nothing happened, really. They were still garbed in the dull gray/brown palette of winter. It makes them almost impossible to see until their motion catches the eye. They grazed by the pond, along the ledge and into the woods across the road.
The squirrels have been racing around doing what squirrels do in the Spring. Tending to their kits and prospecting for the acorns that hey buried last September. And forgot by October.
Once again, my lovely bride spied and fell in love with a small rabbit. Mother Nature is a cupid. A rite of spring.
The pond has been full of so much activity that it has blurred into a sforzando of air, water and wings. Every morning and afternoon has brought flights of mallards and wood ducks. A few hooded mergansers have joined in the fray. We await the first great blue heron.
But I expect that the bass will be happy to await that event as long as possible. Old Blue turns summer into an annual existential experience for them. Though sterile, the poor grass carp are now the bullies of the pond. They have grown to a couple of feet in length and become too much of a mouthful for a heron. The bass are a different story. Fortunately, they procreate or they would become an extinct species.
So it boils down to this. The grass carp are more secure, but the bass have more fun. Which does your inner Pisces prefer?
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