Word gets around: Oyster Pond's fish population is increasing. Have fish, will feed ducks!
What a busy winter it was on Oyster Pond! The first bufflehead and several hooded mergansers arrived on October 30. There still were alewife fingerlings in the pond and it must have been easy fishing for those diving ducks on either side of the Surf Drive culvert where these fish schooled in great numbers before leaving for Vineyard Sound and beyond. Two weeks later, 4 more buffleheads arrived and about 30 redbreasted mergansers. On the morning of Nov 19, 20 hooded mergansers fished the north end of the pond, many coming up with a catch on almost every dive; and on the 21St there were about 50 of them, plus 10 mallards, 5 Canada geese, 2 great blue herons, 1 kingfisher, 4 redbreasted mergansers and, YES!!, a male wood duck YEAH! -- A first for me!). What a spectacular, extravagantly feathered bird! I couldn't take my binoculars off him! Two days later a second male wood duck showed up, like the first in company of mallards. In fact, one of the two was enamored with a female mallard, courting her quite openly in the presence of her mate. This menage a trois dabbled the pond until February when most of the pond froze over for a second time. They and many mallards disappeared then, as did most of the 50-60 hooded mergansers that had graced the pond since November. From my perch on the north end of the pond I sighted daily a higher number and more species this winter than during the preceding two. Often seen on a single morning: red breasted merganser (up to 20); hooded merganser (up to 60); bufflehead (up to 15); wood duck (2 males); pied billed grebe (2); red throated loon (2); ring necked duck (3 males); scaup (up to 30); great blue heron (2); kingfisher (2); mallard (up to 30); Canada goose (12); mute swan (2); cormorant (2 immature great cormorants?); and various gulls. Now that all fishing ducks have gone north, the fish population can recover.
The Community Foundation of Cape Cod has awarded money to OPET to continue to monitor the effect on the pond's health of the reduction in pond salinity. This grant allows us to follow up on past year's studies and to include the Trunk River Lagoon in the monitoring program. OPET received a grant from the Community Foundation last year, money that was spent on equipment purchases, and on water sample analyses.
As in the past year, Envirotech Labs, Inc. of Sandwich has donated to OPET the analysis of 15 water amples for fecal coliform bacteria. That represents 2 rounds of pond samples, or 2 months' sampling. A great gift - thank you!
On a calm day, when the pond is like a mirror, you may see a silver, V-shaped wave travel across the pond. A small, dark-brown, oval-shaped something moving through the water is the point source for the two silvery lines that fan out in a perfect V. It is a muskrat. These busy water rats have their burrows on the banks of ponds and rivers. As far as rats go, they surely leave the prettiest and most evanescent set of tracks!
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