Wednesday 4 September 2013

"The Rat"


    In the spring my pond is a busy place with a lot of migrating ducks, some of which stick around to have their families.  Also in the fall when the ducks return, there is a lot to see.  I have always found it surprising, how little goes on in the pond during the summer.  
    There are no ducks, and except for some dragonflies, some schools of small fish, and maybe a few days when the kingfisher comes around to eat them, there isn’t much wildlife to see.  For years now I have had a muskrat that lives in the pond, but I really hadn’t seen it all summer and I wasn’t sure if it was still around.
    He is a very shy guy and dives under the water whenever it sees us, but the other day when Joan and I were walking along the dam, he just sat there, thinking he was well hidden, and watched us.  Joan doesn’t much like the muskrat because it sometimes muddies up the water as he digs up the roots of the cattails to eat.  She calls him, “The rat.”  Here is a photo of him watching us on the sly.

You can take a look at my paintings at:  www.davidmarchant.ca


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