Something Ate the Comets

Something ate all my larger comets last week. We introduced 100 orange comets into the pond last summer. About 18 of these grew to 6 inches or more in length by the end of the summer. Fourteen of them survived the winter and the pond’s freezing over. Ten of them made it through the Flood of Naught Seven. But not one of them managed to evade the comet eater, whatever it was. I reckon it was that Great Blue Heron that sneaks in from time to time. He came in by day when the dogs were inside and couldn’t run him off. One of my friends reckons it was the neighborhood bear. I’ll probably never know.

There are still as many as a hundred smaller fish, descendants of the original comets, but most of them are not orange. Orange coloration seems to put the fish at a reproductive disadvantage. The surviving fish are hard to see, so they are not as entertaining as the orange guys, but they are probably less likely to get eaten.

We spotted our resident hummingbird on Friday, two days later than last year. We were visited by an indigo bunting on Saturday, a species that is new to our property. The Baltimore orioles and the grosbeaks are back at the feeders, and the juncos are all gone. Spring is officially arrived in the Middle Hudson Valley.

Brad and Janet, our resident water snakes, were back on their basking rock this weekend, and I spotted Suri or Shiloh, one of their offspring, as well. I took the largest water lily, the one that had escaped from its pot and divided it into four pots which I spread around the pond more widely. When these come in, this should provide some shelter for the pond critters. We also added a half dozen water hyacinth, and these should multiply like crazy. I have been faithfully removing silt, and I hope to restore the pond to its usual depth by the end of the month, and this too should make it harder for trespassing birds to treat the pond as their personal smorgasbord.