Blog—Hideaway Pond 4/6/2021 hideawaypond.com
Reveille. Before it hit the horizon, the rising sun had painted the sky bright pink. Evergreens stood out in stark black silhouette. Harbingers of a fine early spring day.
It’s been quiet around Hideaway Pond. Breezy sapphire skies. A moist dark day intervened last week. Welcome interlude of rain for the budding daffodils and forsythia. Red buds of the crimson and swamp maples seem to be bursting with impatience for arrival of their annual gift of bright green leaves. In two weeks or so, they should be rewarded and the Hideaway will recede into it’s yearly verdant cocoon. A Sylvan Secret.
The placid surface of the pond is now disturbed by dark swirls. The bass are busily engaged in their annual spawning dance. The pond will soon be dotted with submerged black patches. Bass fingerlings. Both progeny and provender of their cannibalistic parents. Talk about tough love.
The grass carp go about their sad, sedentary sexless lives in total oblivion. Illusive grass shoots their primary prey. Danger lurks.
About 20 turtles sun themselves on the lawn and island. Spring’s siren song has inspired some into a frenzy of sexual passion. If you can imagine. A behavior which has suddenly afflicted many of the critters of the Hideaway. We have little choice in which direction to avert our gaze.
We’ve had daily visits by two or three pairs of mallards. Two Canada geese and a pair of mallards have splashed down as I write this. They feast on pond side grass and briefly climb ashore to sun themselves, disturbing a dozen sunning turtles as they pass.
Thus far, none have signed on to nest. Just as well, I suppose. Ducklings and goslings are fast food for the local snappers. Beautiful as she is, Mother Nature has a pragmatic side.
And Gilda, the goose who tragically lost her nest to a night time raider years ago has come and gone. During past years a summer long resident, she has found a new love and become a gone goose. God speed Gilda.
Chuck, our cleverly eponymed woodchuck lived under our deck all winter. He briefly exited yesterday, sniffed the air and immediately returned to his den. He apparently didn’t get the memo about woodchucks, sun and shadows.
Several does continue to drop by for an evening snack of newly greening grass on the lawn and surrounding area. And a buck visits on his own schedule. Totally un-intimidated by us as he dines near the house. We think he’s Rudy. The buck that made this his home prior to the rutting season. He has now lost his antlers. Sequentially, I assume. One might wonder–or not–if this causes a crises of confidence in a male deer. I won’t ask. It’s probably a sensitive subject. We found a single antler in the brush near the house years ago. Never found the rest of him. Just as well.
A waning crescent moon sails over the Catskills tonight. On April 26, in its full phase, it will become a “Pink Moon”, so named by the Algonquin Indians for the color of phlox. One of the first blossoms of the year. It’s poetic that this beautiful day began painted in bright pink. Perhaps the Great Spirit has cast a spell, bathing the entire Catskill Range in pink moonlight. Why not? Strong medicine. Close your eyes. Pink dreams
