A Visit to the Pond with Cherie

(Sadly, I have lost the group of photos I took during this walk. Fortunately, I had posted some in Facebook photo albums, so I was able to download them and use those four in the following blog post. This is also the reason this blog post was so long delayed in publishing.)

A Visit to the Pond with Cherie

May 24, 2014

Our good friends Andy and Cherie came from near Peoria, Illinois to spend Memorial Day weekend with us.

The first spring that we spent at our home place, in 1986, Andy and Cherie still lived in Vincennes, not far from here. It was very early spring when Cherie went with me to explore the home woods and, for the first time, discover what wildflowers were blooming there. Our “day of discovery” was delightful, running into Trilliums here, Jack-in-the-Pulpits there, Spring Beauty, Mayapple, Dwarf Larkspur, Violets, and many more.

We friends have seen each other a number of times since they moved, but it has been 28 years since that first spring woods walk. Our woods have, of course, changed, and one of the most notable of those has been the creation of Cottonwood Pond. So, Cherie and I, on a morning in late May, went down into the woods, our spirit of discovery still with us.

Bright, hot sun reached the forest floor in patches where there were openings in the canopy. Songs and calls of birds resounded through the woods – Towhees, Cardinals, Red-Bellied Woodpeckers, Pewees, and other, including the richly fluted song of the Wood Thrush. Growth in the woods was green and lush, and very fresh. There had been enough recent rain for the creek to flow steadily, for the pond to fill up, and for the Seep to, well, seep.

The Very Rotten Log seemed to be melting into the ground more than ever, with a covering of moss and some seedling plants in fertile pockets. We heard small plops in the water where frogs jumped in, but they were too quick to see.

The pond's surface was speckled all over with dark, greenish-brown algae.

“Little pond” was speckled, also, and was still deep and swollen from the rains.  The Root Ball Top was lush with vegetation.

High up in that vegetation, we saw a long string of contrasting color, draped along a twig like a thick rope.

A Common (or Banded) Water Snake was poised around a Maple sapling, so still that we weren't sure it was still alive. We could see beautiful patterns along its side and underneath.

We moved around until we found another angle, and were then able to see its face. It did not move one iota, and its whole body seemed intent on watching one spot, maybe waiting for a small creature to exit one of the holes in the Root Ball Top. Arrow-shaped patterns ran along its belly like a drunkard's path. Its eyes gleamed iridescent as they were caught in a ray of sun.

What a beautiful creature.

According to Sherman A. Minton, Jr., in Amphibians and Reptiles of Indiana (Indiana Academy of Science; 2001), this snake prefers “warm, shallow, relatively quiet water” (which certainly describes Cottonwood Pond) and the larger ones “often bask … on branches overhanging the water”, which certainly describes the behavior of our snake. They eat primarily fish, which I have not yet found in Cottonwood Pond, but also eat frogs, toads and salamanders, which is what it must have been after in this location. One of the predators of this snake is the Raccoon, which frequent Cottonwood Pond.

I hear that the Common Water Snake has a bad temper, so it’s a good thing it was way up there.

Not far from the pond, the fertile stalk of a Rattlesnake Fern, stretching well beyond the filly green, sterile leaflets, glowed pale in a ray of sun.

Cherie looked down at the Very Rotten Log near the pond. The log was spongy with moisture and bits of shredded, rotten wood were scattered. Somehow, she spotted something else among this, something blending with the varying angles of brown pieces of wood and the black splotches of fungus.

From another angle, it was clearer, but still not easy …

We approached very carefully. It did not move from its spot. As we got closer, we could see more clearly the awkwardly long legs of a very young frog. Its “wartiness” was visible, as well as a dark diamond shape on top of the head, a row of dark spots along the edge of its mouth, dark stripes along all four legs, and reddish spots with a pale “x” pattern on its back. All were indications of a Cricket Frog.

 (can you see it?)

As we stood there, we heard another plop when a frog entered the water near the Root Ball. It swam through the pond toward us and popped up near the edge, staring straight up at us, showing not fear, but curiosity. It was as if it came across just to see who we were.

The abundance of green around the mouth and the ridges on top of its head showed that this was a Green Frog.

On the mud of the Root Ball we found something curious. There were two conglomerations made of tiny balls of mud. We did not see the maker of this or any movement there. What constructs tiny balls of mud and them piles them up like snowballs for a snow fort?

It was a mystery I would need to research and solve.

We also found tall muddy chimneys outside the pond’s edge, blobs piled high all around, but I knew those to be the work of crawdads (a.k.a. crayfish).

We left Cottonwood Pond to roam the rest of the woods. We had seen two amphibians, a reptile, and the work of a crustacean. Insects were everywhere (we were especially aware of mosquitoes) and a variety of birds continued to call and sing.

During our walk, we added a mammal to the list when we spotted movement in the hole of a fallen tree. In the dark, the striped tail let us know it was a Raccoon. The camera’s flash revealed more as it hunkered down, watching us just beyond the edge of the hole.

 (see its nose?)

As we did years ago, we enjoyed our exploration of the woods. I just hope it won’t be long before Cherie can go on another exploration of Cottonwood Pond.

[By the way, when we returned to Cottonwood Pond, the Water Snake was still in the same position.]