It’s been interesting living right on the edge of an ecosystem, and I know that makes little sense because we’re all within an ecosystem no matter what, but what I mean is, we can observe the behavior of the wildlife that uses the ponds throughout the year, at all times of the day and night, and so patterns emerge. We have yet to determine how regular they are, but we see shifts going on.
This morning we saw the arrival of a great blue heron (Ardea herodias) for the first time in weeks, which also made me realize that the green heron has not been around either. I understand this for the most part, since the shielding of the water’s surface by the duckweed and cow lilies makes it nigh impossible for fishing birds to actually see prey, plus the fact that nothing larger than minnows are within the main pond in the first place. But I took advantage of the visit all the same; the heron seemed wary and I didn’t try to get closer and chance scaring it off.
I shot a bit wider here for context. It’s hard to see clearly, but to the left is a flat patch of open (though obscured) water near some trees, and this is actually the narrow channel between the main pond and The Bayou; the kayak fits through behind the two thin trees close together, between them and the tree with the dark foliage behind them.
Last night we left the light over the kitchen sink on overnight, since a cluster of at least six tiny juvenile green treefrogs (Dryophytes cinereus,) none of them bigger than a finger joint, were using the window as a hunting ground. I missed the shot where four of them were all on the same small pane of glass, but at least did a handful of frames as they scampered about enthusiastically.
It would be a nicer portrait if it wasn’t as filthy (the frog or the glass,) but whatcha gonna do? Okay, sure, clean the glass inside and out while they’re not there during the day, if you’re anal about it, but the frogs are still going to be ratty since they’re mildly sticky at the best of times – they’re kids.
By the way, the ruckus with the grey treefrogs that I mentioned last night? It went on the entire time that I was recording, and is interspersed liberally with the voiceover track – the only saving grace to this is that the natural background noises of the video clips has been retained too, so the frogs just kind of blend in unless you know the species well enough to know that you shouldn’t be hearing them this perpetually (or at all) during the day. I’ll tell you how bad it was: I always start recording with 4-6 seconds of silence for the noise reduction filter, to have a baseline of the ‘microphone hiss’ to be deleted from the track, and couldn’t actually achieve four seconds of silence. Little bastards. The noise gate function, which removes sounds under a certain decibel threshold (like intakes of breath) works fine – for periods of otherwise silence. So when I’m not talking, all is quiet, but every time I’m speaking I have a background of breeks punctuating every sentence or two. You’ll hear it tomorrow, since I saved the video for the Estate Find of course.