I'm going to try to do a very short blog today. This blog will cover three visits to the park, but will be compressed into as small a space as I possibly can. Note, I said that I was going to try. I'm not sure whether or not I can do. My computer problem has by no means been resolved, although we have managed to free us just the tiniest bit of space. The two computer experts in my life are in disagreement regarding the cause of and solution to my problem. Right now I've chosen to follow my brother-in-law's advice and see what happens. For those who are worried, please rest assured that I've been advised that my problem is not related to a virus or any hacking effort. It's simply a matter of this poor little MAC laptop not having enough memory of any kind to be useful when it comes to taking photos, collecting information, and maintaining a library large enough to allow me to create this blog. Last January I ran out of useful memory. After a ridulous amount of work, I managed to free up some of this hard memory. Now, my problem seems to be a lack of swap memory, whatever that is. So, please bear with me. I'm doing the best that I can with what I have to work with and certainly can't afford to buy another computer. So....onward and upward!
The tadpoles in Marlake are coming along well. The best place I've found to photograph them is when they're hovering on top of the plank that juts into the water near the wharf. This plank is old and on the point of collapse, so I wouldn't even think about putting my weight on it, not unless you want to get very wet and ruin this lovely viewing opportunity for everybody. Tadpoles are very nervous creatures. They need to be, because there are a great many things that find them tasty. If they sense your approach, they will scatter and disappear in a flash, causing the water along the edge of the lake to look like it's boiling. For me, the best tactic has been to slowly, carefully, step up onto the wharf, then settle down, motionless, and wait patiently for the tapoles to forget that I'm there and return to their hovering. As you can see, some of the tadpoles have grown hind legs, although others have not. First they grow their hind legs, then their forelegs, then absorb their tails, then hop out of the lake. They're not ready to be frogs yet, but the transformation from tadpole to frog has begun in earnest.
I was sitting in Dana's living room, chatting over a glass of wine, when we spotted the muskrat swimming across Marlake. I took this photograph through Dana's living room window. Pretty nice window,huh? The cattails have greened up nicely and, as you can see, this particular muskrat is carrying a mouthful of nice, fresh, greens. Muskrats exhibit a behavior called an "eat-out", in which they chomp off the tops of all of the plants in a given area, leaving behind a swatch of emptiness among the reeds. One way to know that a muskrat is living in the area is to search for these obvious "eat-outs".
I've spotted a mother wood duck with her babies at Marlake and I've also spotted a mother wood duck with her babies at Brooklake. I don't know whether we have wood duck families on both lakes, or if it's the same wood duck and ducklings moving between the lakes. One day, I spotted a lone grebe on Marlake and shortly after that spotted the ducklings. Last year, we had a lone grebe on Marlake who was actively attacking a duck and her ducklings. I wonder whether this is the same grebe. I haven't witnessed any aggressive behavior this year, so if it is the same grebe, she's calmed down a bit. Thank goodness!
While some of the wood duck ducklings were swimming around on the far side of Brooklake. These ducklings settled down on top of a little stump in the middle of the lake for a nap. They look like little fluffy puffballs.
Two summers ago we had huge numbers of land snails traveling back and forth over the gray gravel trail in between the sign-in kiosk and the beginning of the boadwalk, and along the trail through the orchard. Last year, the numbers had dwindled considerably. This year, I've seen very few snails at all. I don't know whether our snail population has truly diminished, or whether it takes the new snails a certain number of year to reach maturity and begin their search for mates. We'll just have to keep an eye on things and see what happens next year. In the meantime, please watch your step and try not to crush any that you see.
Garter snakes are out and about. Once again, I haven't seen the huge numbers of snakes this year that I saw last year, but I have seen them throughout the park.
Frogs can be found throughout the park right now. A lot of trees fell down in the little area to the right of the Brooklake viewing platform during the ice storm last winter. I'd never seen frogs in this area before, but now that there are so many trees in the water, frogs seem to be in abundance there, sometimes as many as three or four frogs on a single branch.
The park is completely overgrown now. It's really beautiful! Remember the area where I was photographing the northwestern salamander eggs this spring? This is the same area. You can't even see the water right now.
I've spotted a lot of white-crowned sparrows in the park lately. I think they're so pretty. I've also seen some yellow warblers and western tanagers, but haven't been able to photograph them. They're so tiny and blend in with the leaves perfectly. My eye can pick them out, but my camera lens can't see them for love nor money. I met an asian man in the park who was walking down the boardwalk all alone and was very, very excited. He didn't seem to know any English words, with the exception of the word "red", but through his repeated mouthings of the word "red" and his hand signals that were forming a crest over his head, and his body language that bespoke the flapping of bird wings, I was able to intuit that he had just seen a pileated woodpecker. He was grinning from ear to ear in excitement. I love it when that happens!
Teri I. Lenfest
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