December 4, 2022
Martha O'Kennon
After last week's meltdown, the temperatures have hovered a bit between 32 F and 49 F, meaning the pond has been unfrozen all this week. All in all, a pretty typical November, with not a lot of interest happening above ground.
Here is the Pond on November 28, 2022. We're looking from just north of the pond towards the Seely house south of it. The stone Alligator is so cold it's turned blue (normally it is greyish).
Looking downward into the south end of the Pond, you can see the old plants (I clipped as much as I could reach with loppers before the freeze). The Fishes seem to be floating just under the little heater, which must still be generating heat any time the water temperature drops below 32 F, meaning they still appreciate a bit of warmth. Picture 3 shows Bunky, one of our oldest fishes now. Most of the Fishes didn't come out so well as this colorful fellow.
Remember that there is information in the name of the file for each image. You can see it by mousing over the image - look at the lower left of the screen. Or you can click on the image to get to the (usually) larger image. Then the info is displayed in the address line above. Sometimes the second click will actually display a different view of the original image.
The Winter Ants are still doing fine, although I don't see many of them. I love their jaunty attitude.
I might as well confess, I didn't see a single Bee nor a Beetle this week. But there were cold-hardy Bugs. Once in a while our old faithful Drymus unus could still be seen on the Wall or even on the defunct Goldenrod. And a couple of times I spotted that similarly faithful Leafhopper, Erasmoneura vulnerata.
The same old Flies keep on keeping on. Here are a Midge, that little Moth Fly we saw last week, and a possible Fungus Gnat.
More Flies. The third one seems to have two heads. Oh no, wait. Even in this bitter cold, Flies seem to be mating.
There was also this Crane Fly. I don't understand how something that looks so delicate can be surviving out there!
There were some tiny flies with a bit of WIP coloration.
I thought you might like to see some color-morphs of that same Fly. This is NOT the WIP coloring.
Here are some of the Case Creatures. First, the Common Bagworm. Then one of the Case Moths (two shots).
Let's see how the Barklice are doing. First, an adult Graphopsocus cruciatus and a pile of eggs. Then a couple of shots of some of the more bedraggled specimens. I don't quite know what is making them so twisted!
I didn't see any Spiders this week, but here is a Daddy-long-legs. On the top of the North Wall, here are two Lichens we have been watching for a long time. They seem to be just waiting for some Lichen-loving creatures to come take a bite out of them. That may be just such a creature nestled into the second Lichen.
Well, here we are at the end of the story for this week. I hope you are in a place where more beautiful and active creatures are at this very moment interacting with your ecosystem and you. I've had a good couple of weeks working on the final set of classes for AALL, and also doing a bit of sewing. At the end of a day, I love to cut out a project and nestle into bed with all my pointy scissors and needles and pins, including a needle-threader. There I get warm and sleepy while stitching (and sometimes ripping out a tiny bit). It takes so little to make me feel comfortable. Not all of it comes out of a bottle!
Love, Martha
This last morning the Pond was once more frozen over. There was no molten ring around the little floating heater. After a few moments thinking "This is too soon - That heater is only in its second year out of three promised years of working." Then the little Goofy on the other shoulder reminded me - check the reset light! Sure enough, it was off and so I pushed the reset button and the light came on and soon the molten ring was back!
We end watching a scene from yesterday - the ripples were caused by a stiff little breeze on the Pond.
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copyright Martha O'Kennon 2022