A natural pond is your typical pond built on the land and nature provides the water to keep it full. Known as a farm pond, tank, pool and lakes. Nature helps to keep it under control but can also have moments we catch that are not so fun to watch.
It’s survival of the fittest out there, so many things going on while we sleep and even while we are sitting there enjoying the ponds beauty. It happens under the water and above the water as well. Your probably asking yourself “what the heck is he talking about?” Well the pond is your very own eco system, in the water we have microscopic organisms that start the pond life process and they are fed upon the next biggest organisms and continues until we have large fish.
Minnows will eat misquote larva, then the minnows are a food source for larger fish and those larger fish are food for the big one that got away. Same thing on land around the pond edge starting with the smallest and getting bigger. Spider’s (yuk) catch the small insects some are annoying to us while other can benefit but that’s the way it is. Every creature has one or more predators. Our fish we are raising can be taken by a raccoon, Blue Heron, snake, mink or weasel even the frogs have most of the same predators.
Same with the ducks around the pond, coyotes, fox, cat’s can all take the young even a hawk can swoop down for a meal. One year we had a baby Robin in the yard and went to get a camera, came back only to see a hawk flying away. That’s nature keeping things in check.
If we don’t see it happening it’s like no harm no foul and we continue on with or day around the pond. Nature can also help too much, with too many pond weeds it can stunt our fish growth, plug outlets and once they die in winter creating more muck and nutrients that’s a different story. (Click the Picture to enlarge)
Back to the story. I was out weeding around the pond mainly pulling the pond willow from the dam area and started around the back side when I heard a strange sound. Never heard it before and only heard it every few minutes. I kept sneaking closer and closer to the noise and still couldn’t see anything. After about 15-20 minutes of little steps and peaking in the plants I finally saw a frog appear out of the thick stuff. When it move again I thought at first no wonder he’s making this weird sound, one leg was bigger than the other and thought we had a mutated frog. But he moved again to reveal a longer leg which was actually a snake. Not what I was expecting!!!
Let’s just say there was a little intervention and with one jump the frog was happily in water swimming to the other side of the pond. Yes the snake went away hungry. We can’t be there for everything or save all the creatures but a little intervention if you see it happen gives us a little warm feeling.(Click the Picture to enlarge)
Just thought I would share a rare peak at nature running its course. I guess it’s a good thing we don’t see this all the time. All seems kind of brutal but think about it. The animals and insects don’t have guns, they only have what they brought with them and do their best to survive.
Any thoughts? Feel free to comment.
