The pond is going dry.
It’s an annual event, but it happens differently each year. This has been a year of extremes. Excessive rains and flooding in late winter
were counter acted by an early April drought.
The cycle has been repeated with late April floods and a May
drought. Blue Jay Barrens has had only
one third of an inch of rain during the last four weeks. For a well drained, shallow soil area, this
means drought stress.
Butterflies have moved in to extract minerals and other nutrients
from the pond mud. Question Marks have
been especially abundant this year.
Swarms of small, colorful flies walk the mud flats and skate
across the water. Their colors ripple
from yellow and gold to blue and green as they shift position in the sunlight.
I haven’t identified the fly, but I’m guessing it to be a
species of Dance Fly. Since there are
several hundred of those to choose from, that guess doesn’t narrow it down too
much.
This is the extent of the water. At this stage I’m always reminded of African
water holes. Exposed mud is trampled and
vegetation is beat down by animals coming in to drink. Except for my Water Garden
Most of these tracks are from the nursing female
Raccoon. The water is shallow enough for
her to wade all the way across, so she can be a very effective predator.
Unfortunately for the Raccoon, there’s not a lot to eat in
the pond right now. The early frog and
salamander larvae have transformed into air breathing land dwellers. There are only a handful of tadpoles left and
they are transforming very quickly.
Backswimmers are the most abundant visible creature, but they’re not
much to feed a hungry Raccoon.
Most of the Bullfrogs have either moved out or been
eaten. I only saw two and the water was
almost too shallow to provide any cover.
If we don’t get rain today, the pond bottom will be baking in the sun by
the end of the week. I’m already
thinking about next year’s salamander season.
