Great blue heron and azolla in the Meadow Pond

There's a shallow pond in the meadow near my office  -- we've called it unofficially the 'leaky' pond, since it's never held water very well, even though we've tried to seal it a couple of times with bentonite treatments.

In spite of the shallow water (and probably because of it), it's been a good pond for frogs, dragonflies, and birds.

heron and azolla in the Meadow pond

Leaving work the other day, I spotted this Great Blue Heron (perhaps a young individual), 'knee deep' in the azolla or mosquito fern (that's colonized the edges of the pond, and is turning red with cold weather).  Presumably, it's Azolla caroliniana, a native mosquito fern, rather than one of the invasive ones.

It's interesting to consider how it's colonized the pond.

I'm thinking that it may have come in with some of the semi-aquatic plants that were transplanted on the edges of the pond at the end of a research project.  But, that's just a guess.

Click on the photo for a closer look.

Note: this is a duplicate post from my blog, Natural Gardening.

A Great Blue Heron

An early morning walk today found a Great Blue Heron at the edge of the Hosta Garden pond. She/he walked up the path above the pond, and must have flown on to the Duck Pond, where we saw him/her next.

We ran into Garden horticulturist Kathy Bridges on the Duck Pond dam, and she said that the Great Blue Heron was a 'regular' visitor each morning, moving from the Hosta Garden pond to the Duck Pond (presumably flying through the trees!)

How cool is that!

A great blue heron having lunch

We often see great blue herons stopping by the ponds. Today, a group of SC Master Naturalists were lucky enough to see one nab a small fish in the Duck Pond, poke at it, and then, gulp!

On a cold rainy day, we were experiencing nature in the Garden, as we mused about holly berry 'tastiness', coral honeysuckle and hummingbirds, the nature of early flowering trees and shrubs, and talked about plants. We spent a good bit of the morning inside in the Nature Center, but then ventured forth for a loop around the Duck Pond.

I was pleased that the Duck Pond sign (with the nature note) had an observation to match!