POND LOVERS

The farm country I visit has a lot of ponds.  They’re now unfrozen and have become habitat for many critters.  I decided to visit several of those ponds to see what I could find.

The first pond I came to was a long oval pond surrounded by cat tails.  I’ve photographed both a Great Blue Heron and a Black-crowned Night-Heron there.  It’s also where I saw the Belted Kingfisher last week.

I could hardly believe it, but the kingfisher was still in the same spot, intently focused on the pond.  It was a sunny day so I was able to get a better picture this time.

I even caught some its loud, penetrating rattle, which my bird app likened to a heavy fishing reel.

 Around the corner was a second pond and I immediately disturbed two Buffleheads who were just slipping into the water.  They quickly took a low flight to the other end of the pond.

 They skidded in for a landing and settled in for a float as far from me as they could get.  The female is on the left and the male is on the right.

The prize of the day, however, came when I saw this beaver lodge down the road a bit in a third pond.

This sunlit beaver was standing right beside its den.  It’d been busy since the lodge wasn’t here last week when I’d visited.

It was great fun watching the beaver swim through the pond waters looking for additions for its lodge.  Gracie hung out the window watching in quiet fascination.  Good girl.

Back and forth, up and down, the beaver went.  It was sure easy to see how the saying “busy as a beaver” came about.

We were getting ready to pull away, when I caught sight of the beaver’s large tail as it began to make another climb.  That large tail serves as a rudder and can propel the beaver to speeds up to 5 mph. Beavers also use their tails to slap the water to drive away their predators.  With its tail and webbed feet, the beaver acts a lot like a duck!