Howard County — 2017 — The 21st Century Matriarch

The water retention pond that is supposed to slow down water run-off from our neighborhood was not working and there was flooding occurring with more frequency. Earth moving equipment was brought in by the country and turned a pond with lots of vegetation for wildlife around it (picture from last December)

Into a mud pit with very little vegetation around it. We had a day of heavy rain right after the vegetation was scraped away and the water than accumulated looks thick with silt and has already developed a green scum.

Here it is from a different angle. No one will be sitting on the bench enjoying the antics of red winged blackbirds in the cattails or frogs crocking in the pond anytime soon! One of the neighbors commented that she’d seen a large owl looking at the pond from one of the neighboring houses. It’s likely that it’s home was destroyed. Hopefully, the project will enable the pond to function as it should for water retention. The pond needs some grasses or other vegetation planted on the slopes or this clean out of the pond is going to be short lived.

The only positive thing I saw on my walk around the pond was a single solitary sandpiper. With the heavy vegetation that was around the pond previously, the bird would not have been visible even if it had visited.

On the back side of the pond there is milkweed coming up but the plants are on the edge of the area not previously mowed. Hopefully they will survive for the Monarch Butterflies this season.

Late last week there was a sunny day…and I accompanied my husband to Centennial Park. He walked all the way around…I was busy taking pictures! The first subject was a red tailed hawk high in a tulip poplar tree. The angle wasn’t great – but the reddish tail feathers were a little visible in one of the pictures and the fluffing of the breast feathers was a good clue to how cold the day was.

There were Canadian Geese of course. They are always at Centennial. I experimented with different angles…reflections, near silhouettes, the awkwardness of the bird on land.

There were two types of diving ducks. Both are winter birds in Maryland. They are a challenge to photograph because the go completely under the water then pop back to the top for few seconds. The Buffleheads were on the other side of the lake from where I was…but the white on their heads make them easy to identify even in a blurred picture. The one on the left is a male; the right is a female….not enough of a side view to tell the one in the middle.

The other diving ducks on the lake were female ruddy ducks. Their tails are a stiff fan. I didn’t see any flipped upward but these ducks were actively feeding…only staying on top of the water for short periods of time.

I decided it was a little chilly to stay out longer so headed back to the car. Along the way, I tried a ‘looking up’ shot of small cones. I like the sharpness of the lines within the cones – light and shadow.