September 12, 2016
For those of you who were following the Berry Barometer leading up to our Mayhaw Berry Harvest Festival last May, I thought an update would be in order. Especially since our natural Mayhaw Berry tree stand goes through such radical changes through the year. Here’s a recent video.
The whole seasonal series can be found on our YouTube channel.
In the little bit of pond that’s left are lots of white birds! We are lucky enough to have a kind of rare, black-headed wood ibises, a couple of large blue herons and a flock of cattle egrets. They won’t let me get near them, so my pictures are not great. Here’s one of the heron with a bunch of white birds.
And Then Came Hermine
Hermine, plus strong storms every night for the last few, have filled up the pond again.
Someone new to biology might think it would be impossible for animals to live in the zone of the Mayhaw Pond where water comes and goes. This rapidly changing area at a lake or at the seashore is part of what’s called a ‘littoral zone.’ Lots of plant and animal species have adapted to this zone.
We can tell you that frogs don’t seem to mind the shifting habitat. Even after long periods of dryness, fresh rains brings them out. At night, they can sound like trucks roaring. At the other range of the sound spectrum, I’ve heard what I thought was a timer dinging somewhere in the house. And come to find out it’s one of the frog noises. Fortunately, this does not go on every night!