WEBVTT Kind: captions; Language: en 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:28.001 [...] 00:00:39.000 --> 00:00:44.000 The last snow of the New England winter has melted away. The soft April breeze 00:00:44.000 --> 00:00:49.000 touches the woods and fields and streams, and a new life stirs within them. The 00:00:49.000 --> 00:00:54.000 Canada Plum has already blossomed and signaled the start of spring, and spring is 00:00:54.000 --> 00:00:59.000 the beginning of many things. It's the time to do a little pleasant research into 00:00:59.000 --> 00:01:04.000 the mysteries of the pond that looks so calm on the surface, but teems with a 00:01:04.000 --> 00:01:19.000 half-hidden life of its own. Ducks are among the first 00:01:27.000 --> 00:01:31.001 families in the pond's social scale, for whoever heard of a pond without a duck. 00:01:32.000 --> 00:01:36.000 She's busy at her endless task of searching for food, not for a growing family, 00:01:36.001 --> 00:01:40.001 but for herself. Her babies at home will have to fend for themselves until 00:01:40.001 --> 00:01:44.001 they're big enough to journey with her. Well, there doesn't seem to be much of a 00:01:44.001 --> 00:01:48.001 food selection among the lily pads. Perhaps she'll do better if she tries among 00:01:48.001 --> 00:01:53.000 the marsh marigolds. They're one of the first wildflowers of spring, and with any 00:01:53.000 --> 00:01:56.001 luck, they should be crawling with nice, fat insects. 00:02:00.001 --> 00:02:04.000 In the meantime, there's quite a lot of activity going on at home, sharp little 00:02:04.000 --> 00:02:07.001 egg, and with little fragments of shells sticking to the natal down. 00:02:22.001 --> 00:02:26.001 It's not long now before they leave the nest. After trying out their slightly 00:02:26.001 --> 00:02:30.001 unsteady legs, they venture into the pond for their first swimming lesson. 00:02:33.000 --> 00:02:38.001 The dictionary calls this marsh grass a chorus calamus. People call it sweet 00:02:38.001 --> 00:02:43.001 flag. It's a common marsh plant, as common as the cattails that grow tall and 00:02:43.001 --> 00:02:49.000 thick on the edge of the pond. If you search long enough among the cleverly 00:02:49.000 --> 00:02:51.001 concealed nest of the red-winged blackbird. 00:03:17.000 --> 00:03:22.000 The male red-winged selects the nesting area, and sings sweetly to persuade a 00:03:22.000 --> 00:03:26.000 female red-wing that he'll be a good husband and a thoughtful provider, and that 00:03:26.000 --> 00:03:28.001 his chosen pond will be a good place to raise a family. 00:03:30.001 --> 00:03:37.000 In the course of a season, the red-winged couple will raise several broods, 00:03:37.001 --> 00:03:42.000 building a new nest for each. Eggs are laid and hatched with an almost monotonous 00:03:42.000 --> 00:03:46.001 regularity, and there's a never-ending succession of wide-open 00:03:46.001 --> 00:03:48.000 little red mouths to fill. 00:03:55.000 --> 00:04:01.001 You will have to move quietly here. There's a loon nesting in the cattails, and 00:04:01.001 --> 00:04:08.000 she won't like being disturbed. Oh, she's seen us, and 00:04:08.000 --> 00:04:10.001 the camera captures her in slow motion as she takes 00:04:10.001 --> 00:04:12.001 off. Listen to the call of the loon. 00:04:16.000 --> 00:04:22.001 If 00:04:22.001 --> 00:04:28.001 we place a 50-cent piece in the loon's nest, you will see how large the eggs are 00:04:28.001 --> 00:04:34.000 in proportion. The loon is the largest of all the diving birds. In a nearby nest, 00:04:34.000 --> 00:04:38.001 we see a newly hatched loon, busily demonstrating how he got out of his shell. 00:04:39.000 --> 00:04:42.000 You will see on the tip of his beak a little nodule, 00:04:42.000 --> 00:04:43.001 which is called the egg tooth. 00:04:44.000 --> 00:04:47.001 The shell-bound loon, like other little birds, uses it as a 00:04:47.001 --> 00:04:49.000 tool to chisel his way out. 00:05:00.001 --> 00:05:05.001 It's not long before the baby loon leaves the nest and takes to the water, 00:05:06.000 --> 00:05:07.001 bobbing along obediently behind his 00:05:13.000 --> 00:05:18.000 mother. The nest of the Virginia rail is carefully hidden in a tussock of grass 00:05:18.000 --> 00:05:23.000 growing out of the water. The rail is a wading bird and feeds on aquatic bugs in 00:05:23.000 --> 00:05:28.000 the larvae of the dragonfly. The baby rail looks rather ungainly as he struggles 00:05:28.000 --> 00:05:39.001 out of his shell, but he'll improve when his down the bullfrog tadpole has 00:05:39.001 --> 00:05:44.000 started on its cycle of growth. At first, it bears a rather strong resemblance to 00:05:44.000 --> 00:05:49.001 a fish, but as time goes by, the little bumps on his body develop into legs. The 00:05:49.001 --> 00:06:02.000 tail is gradually absorbed and he becomes a frog. Two or three weeks after the 00:06:02.000 --> 00:06:05.001 frog lays her eggs, the toads come to the 00:06:09.001 --> 00:06:24.001 families. The bullfrog stays in the pond for his entire life. The adult toad 00:06:24.001 --> 00:06:29.000 spends most of his life on land, but when spring comes, he returns to the pond 00:06:29.000 --> 00:06:34.000 for the mating season. And then the whole pond seems to burst into song. Toad 00:06:34.000 --> 00:07:02.000 competes with toad to attract the females, and either the loudest voice or the 00:07:02.000 --> 00:07:06.001 frogs, it's quite a trick to catch one since they jump very quickly and sometimes 00:07:06.001 --> 00:07:09.000 make leaps from 8 to 10 feet long. 00:07:21.001 --> 00:07:25.000 Dragonflies lay their eggs on the surface of the water or on the leaves and stems 00:07:25.000 --> 00:07:29.000 of plants that have fallen in. In the next stage of its development, the 00:07:29.000 --> 00:07:34.000 dragonfly to bee is called a nymph. It lives underwater and feeds on insects. 00:07:37.001 --> 00:07:44.001 There comes a day when the full-grown nymph 00:07:44.001 --> 00:07:50.000 crawls onto the flower stem and slowly pulls itself out of its larval skin. The 00:07:50.000 --> 00:07:55.000 fluid pumps through the crumpled wings and they gradually expand. For a while, 00:07:55.001 --> 00:07:58.001 the dragonfly rests in the sunlight. The flexible way of [...] be as the wind 00:07:58.001 --> 00:08:02.000 dries and the mature insect is ready to fly away. 00:08:04.000 --> 00:08:10.000 He is swift as lightning on the wing. Now you see him, now you don't. And now 00:08:10.000 --> 00:08:12.001 he's back with a juicy mouthful of housefly. 00:08:19.001 --> 00:08:25.001 Resting for a while beside its newly-discarded larval sheath is the damselfly. It 00:08:25.001 --> 00:08:29.001 belongs to a suborder of the general dragonfly group and is smaller and 00:08:29.001 --> 00:08:31.000 slower than the common dragonfly. 00:08:44.001 --> 00:08:48.001 A great many birds and animals depend largely on their natural camouflage to hide 00:08:48.001 --> 00:08:53.000 them from their enemies. It's only by chance that we spot the bittern waiting 00:08:53.000 --> 00:08:57.001 from the shallows to his hideout among the reefs. If you try to make friends with 00:08:57.001 --> 00:09:01.001 him, he's not likely to cooperate. He's very quick to take offense. That elastic 00:09:01.001 --> 00:09:07.001 neck can stretch to about 12 inches. All the better to spear at you. If very much 00:09:07.001 --> 00:09:10.000 aroused, he'll even try to peck your eyes out. 00:09:34.001 --> 00:09:39.000 If you ever want a turtle for a pet, stay clear of this one. The snapping turtle 00:09:39.000 --> 00:09:42.001 is easily the largest and most vicious of the freshwater. 00:09:43.000 --> 00:09:47.000 The powerful and aggressive fighter whose head can move like lightning. 00:09:50.000 --> 00:09:57.000 This gaping mouth 00:09:57.000 --> 00:10:02.001 has snapped and swallowed large quantities of fish, frogs, and even ducks. 00:10:06.001 --> 00:10:10.001 The painted turtle is very much smaller and not at all aggressive. It may even be 00:10:10.001 --> 00:10:12.001 considered beneficial since it gobbles all the [...] 00:10:12.001 --> 00:10:15.001 [...] turtle carries up great numbers of the more irritating insects, chiefly 00:10:15.001 --> 00:10:22.001 flies. The fallacy persists that turtles, when placed on their backs, are 00:10:22.001 --> 00:10:26.001 unable to turn themselves over. But as you see, they can. 00:10:36.000 --> 00:10:40.001 There's this first tree at the edge of the pond, and on an overhanging branch 00:10:40.001 --> 00:10:44.001 you'll see the nest of the kingbird. The parent kingbirds are perched on the 00:10:44.001 --> 00:10:48.000 branch of the neighboring tree, ready to swoop at passing insects for their 00:10:48.000 --> 00:10:52.001 nearly hatched brood. While the mother bird feeds her family delicious morsels of 00:10:52.001 --> 00:10:56.001 dragonfly, the male stays on guard to fight off any large animals. 00:10:56.001 --> 00:10:58.001 The larger birds will appear to threaten their safety. 00:11:09.000 --> 00:11:15.001 After wintering in Florida, chipping sparrows return to their northern homes in 00:11:15.001 --> 00:11:20.000 early spring to eat up weed seeds and tiny tent caterpillars, which 00:11:20.000 --> 00:11:21.001 makes them very popular with the farmers. 00:11:27.000 --> 00:11:31.001 The best known and most appealing of all our shorebirds, we think, is the 00:11:31.001 --> 00:11:35.001 friendly little sandpiper. The babies are as soft and downy as 00:11:35.001 --> 00:11:37.000 Easter chicks and even tinier. 00:11:42.001 --> 00:11:46.001 The young ones leave the nest almost as soon as they're hatched. Still feeble on 00:11:46.001 --> 00:11:50.000 their legs, they begin their carefree life of chasing along through the shallow 00:11:50.000 --> 00:11:54.000 waters to catch insects, chipping with delight as they go. 00:12:01.000 --> 00:12:07.001 New England days grow longer now, and summer comes to the pond. But spring is 00:12:07.001 --> 00:12:12.001 never really over. Another year, another spring, and spring is the 00:12:12.001 --> 00:12:14.000 beginning of many things.