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