In the last week, we’ve had two wildlife sightings at the pond that remind us of the tough road ahead for our Wood Duck ducklings.
First, we came across this old gal below. She's a Common Snapping Turtle about a foot in diameter. She was excavating a hole in the top of
our dam to bury her eggs. This is our first sighting of a 'snapper' at
our pond, but since they are pretty elusive, our assumption is that she’s been here
for a while (snapping turtles live into their 70s and beyond, grow throughout their lives, and given her size, it's entirely possible that she and I are the same age!). We just happened to catch her out in the open for her egg-laying event, where she emerges from the muck only long enough to dig the hole and deposit about 30 eggs. They are strong ambush predators that can take
just about anything they can grab. And their necks are long (it is completely retracted in this photo) and flexible enough to reach
around and bite you if you pick them up by the sides of their shells.
Then, today, we got a glimpse of one of the larger denizens
of the pond. We rarely see the large-mouth bass in the pond and never see the
biggest ones. But the one in this picture was showing off today.
For scale, the smaller fish in the shot are bluegill. They get up to a
foot long but I estimate that the ones in the photo are 6-8 inches
long. There are two bass on the right side and the largest looks to be about 4x
bigger than the bluegills on the left, which puts the bass in the 25-30 inch range!
Large-mouth bass will eat just about anything they can swallow and at that size, a duckling could be a snack. And of course, this probably isn’t the biggest one in the pond. As Obi Wan reminded us, there’s always a bigger fish.
It’s hard to know if either of these predators have actually taken any of our newest ducklings, but I suppose they would if circumstances were right. It’s a dangerous world out there! If it’s any consolation, though, it’s tough going for everyone. The next day, we went to check on the nest where the snapper had laid her eggs and they had all been dug up. It's likely that a raccoon or mink smelled them and ate her entire brood. And of course, snapping turtles do prey on small fish like baby bass.
Large-mouth bass will eat just about anything they can swallow and at that size, a duckling could be a snack. And of course, this probably isn’t the biggest one in the pond. As Obi Wan reminded us, there’s always a bigger fish.
It’s hard to know if either of these predators have actually taken any of our newest ducklings, but I suppose they would if circumstances were right. It’s a dangerous world out there! If it’s any consolation, though, it’s tough going for everyone. The next day, we went to check on the nest where the snapper had laid her eggs and they had all been dug up. It's likely that a raccoon or mink smelled them and ate her entire brood. And of course, snapping turtles do prey on small fish like baby bass.
It’s the circle of life in Appalachia!
