An embarrassment of riches

Did I say Nemesis Pond was like Grand Central Station yesterday? Pshaw. That was Danby at 2 a.m. compared to what I experienced today down there.

First up, though, a couple of shots of Yoshi vacuuming his head and neck after getting his hair cut today—I just love his expressions:





Now, on to the good stuff.

To start with, a photo of the goose all puffed up on her nest:



While she hung out there, two other geese peacefully floated along not far from where I stood:



Although things got a bit less peaceful later on:



The kingfisher put in an appearance as well:



And the specks you see in this image are not a sign you need to clean off your monitor—they're some of the dozens of swallows that circled above the trees across the pond when the bugs started coming out at dusk:



I also discovered something very interesting when I got home and downloaded my photos this evening—it appears there's a chance that least some of the time I've believed I was watching a beaver swim in the pond, I was actually looking at a turtle. And a pretty large one at that:





But I'm pretty sure this animal swimming toward the reeds is indeed a beaver:



I ended up standing there on the bank for quite a while as the light faded, seeing even more wildlife than I was able to photograph. On the avian side of things, I spotted a few different types of waterfowl flying to and from the pond, as well as a heron that flew back and forth above the opposite shoreline (and was harassed by some smaller birds at one point). As for mammals, I heard some rustling in the reeds just in front of me and glanced down in time to see an otter dart along the water's edge—unfortunately, by the time my brain had registered what it was it was already out of sight. Not too long after that encounter, I glanced to my far right and saw a rabbit making its way down the road. I turned to try and get a photo, but it spooked and was in the brush before I had time to bring my camera to my eye.

About ten minutes later, I was once again watching out over the pond when I heard something moving in the forest behind me. It was loud enough that I figured it was the rabbit rather than a squirrel, and even though I knew my chances of picking it out against the leaves were fairly low I swiveled my torso around to take a look. It wasn't the rabbit:



It's definitely not every day you get to watch a gray fox walk by a mere fifteen feet away from you. And considering the fading light, I'm feeling incredibly glad and lucky that I was able to get a decent shot of it.

Eventually, I had to accept that it was getting too dark for taking photos and headed for home. When I slowed up to go over the speed bump at the end of the road leading to and from the pond, though, these clouds caught my eye. So I couldn't resist one more picture:



Finally, a few Kaylee pics for your enjoyment. Here, she's chewing on a piece of rawhide:



Kaylee had a very, very busy afternoon yesterday playing with three young boys all under the age of 4, and was still pretty tired out today as well:



Make that very tired out:



And thus, at long last, today's epic post comes to a close.