Friday, June 21, 2013

Pond Life



No narration and no cameo appearance in this video, just the sounds of nature at the pond. This pond isn't on my property but it is adjacent to my land only about a five minute walk away. The pond has been there for many years in a disused gravel pit. It used to be very shallow and would go dry in summer, but in the past year beavers have moved in and built a lodge in the centre of the pond. The beaver is a master at hydraulic engineering, they have damed up the areas where the pond was loosing water and almost doubled the size of the pond and it is much deeper than it used to be. If you notice dead trees around the edge of the pond that is an indication that there are beavers at work, when they raise the water level trees at the edge of the pond suddenly find there roots under water and that kills the tree. Toward the end of the video I show you the very well camouflaged Beaver Lodge but unfortunately I have't been able to video the beavers yet. Since the beavers moved in there is a lot more wildlife than there used to be. Not sure how many turtles there are but as you can see I have seen three at one time and I have seen a number of smaller ones off in the water. not sure of the breed but they might be Painted Turtles if anyone knows for sure please leave a comment  There is a nice close-up of a frog and two different kinds of tadpoles. Frogs, toads and salamanders all lay there eggs in ponds and they hatch into tadpoles. There is also a close-up of one tadpole in it's second year stage starting to grow legs. I know that there are at least two families of Black Ducks but I have't been able to get video of them so far either, so maybe there will be a Pond Life II later on this summer.