The Living Pond
Beau May 27th, 2007
The pond looks so nice at this time of year. The leaves have finally established themselves, giving shade to each side of the pond as the day moves on. Most of the fish are completing their spring spawning. When you walk the pond you can see small areas of gravel where the fish laid eggs. Life is abundant with tadpoles, bullfrogs, minnows, snails, insects and more. I really enjoy seeing the diversity of wildlife in the area. On some days a Great Blue Heron shows up… they are quite wary, and fly off when seeing anyone nearby. I would rather they not spend much time here… they dine on anything they can catch and eat… sometimes they catch things, but can’t eat them. A couple weeks ago I found a very large Bluegill dead on the bank. A heron had grabbed it, making deep bill marks down both sides of its back. But the heron couldn’t eat it… so it just left it there. We went fishing ourselves the other day and caught several bass and bluegill.
I took a few more photos of a basking turtle, and the best I can determine is that it’s a pond slider. Probably a Missouri Slider technically. This one is about 12 inces long, and although I’ve seen one or two other turtles, they have been smaller.
The Slider decides it’s time to make a getaway to the pond.
