Spring is Bringing New Life

 We went for a walk yesterday while it was nice and sunny. Over night everything had changed.  Spring had brought on new babies everywhere.  There are fry all along the edges of the pond.  They will hide under leaves or rock and as soon as you get close you can see them scatter for a little deeper water.  These are not from this spring.  They were the last batch of fry from the spawning at the end of late summer.  The water has finally warmed up enough for them to move closer to the edges where they are safer from the bigger fish and have more food to eat.

This week of warmer weather should start making the crappie move to the shallower water for their spawning.  Then a true new spring batch of fry will be moving around the edges in search of shelter and food.

 Now we are just waiting for the water temp to creep up to 65 to 68.  This will initiate the first spring spawn. The crappie will spawn first.  Then the redears, before the bluegills take over.  The catfish are the last to start their spawning since the water temp needs to be around 80.  The bluegills will spawn every month until temps start to drop in the fall.  We will have tons of new babies very soon.

On the end of our walk we found our second duck egg!  My goal this week is to make her a comfy spot to nest and hope it works.  We have tried before, but she will just lay them where ever she feels the need to.  So far with her, it is like an Easter egg hunt every day.

While she is just starting to lay her eggs, a few of the local birds have already filled up one of our bird hotels and have hatched out!  It has at least three to five nest full of baby birds singing for their moms.  They are very high off the ground, so it is hard to get  a good picture of them.  There is another huge bird house on the other side of the pond, but I can not hear any babies.

Cute little wild flowers are everywhere.  Along with a few other bird nest.

This nest is pretty low to the ground and is home to a bird that has not had her eggs so far this spring. She is my little Yorkies worst enemy of the week.  She does not like him to get anywhere near where she is building.