Living near water offers diverse benefits to birders, boaters and bathers—the last not so much at Farrar Pond, where swimming is prohibited. Also costs; a major one, with shallow ponds and marshy edges, is the rapid breeding therein of contagion-bearing whining bloodsuckers.

Lao Tzu reminds us that when any force or movement becomes […]

Seven pole-mount houses arrayed around a 200-foot square is just enough distance and spare capacity that three bluebirds have taken up residence, and are now on second broods. The other boxes were staked out (if not always occupied) by chickadees and wrens, like this one feeding young that have attained the cheeping stage.

July 24th, 2014 | Ed.

An annoyingly fruitful union:

Zzz! Ouch! Slap!

Harsh winter apparently having removed the usual resident (bullfrog tadpole, dragonfly nymph) predators, and late spring delayed the arrival of visitors (ring and garter snakes), these teeming wood frog tadpoles moil about near their empty egg masses in a thin layer of sun-heated water above slightly submerged oak leaves and arising lily pads:

Organized […]

A long, sharp winter indeed, and pond ice slow to clear. But edges melt first, due in part to a constant inflow of sub-surface water thermostatted to about 55°F.

So as soon as vernal and other upland pools are themselves accessible, frogs go on the prowl. Preferred conditions are temperatures in […]

Water, water, every where, Nor any drop to drink

–The Rime of the Ancient Mariner

A new arrival to the Farrar Pond area some decades past queried local conservation experts on the best ways to encourage mammalian and avian wildlife on land intended to become a nature preserve. The obvious […]