Thursday July 14, 2005

Ergo breaks in Austin On two of my first four days at work in the Austin campus, I have sauntered out to the pond behind building 9. On my return visit this afternoon, I was determined to identify the creatures jumping from the reeds into the pond as I made my way around the perimeter. On my first walk, I saw only fish and dragonflies and heard the kerplop of the skittish mystery creatures. Today, the pond greeted me with a colorfully striped snake about 2 feet long swimming across the surface. Next, I spotted a brown toad swimming away from the shore without a kerplop. Continuing around, I heard several more entries into the pond, but only saw the disturbance in the mossy waters. At the end of circling the pond, there floated upsidedown a mostly eaten 18 inch fish. It had a large mouth and no whiskers, so I'm guessing a bass. Next to the carcass, I spotted a small turtle's head with red stripes. That was more consistent with the amount of rustling and noise I had heard. I am fairly confident it is turtles, not the toads that I am scaring into the water. It is too hot for the toads to stay out of the water and we all know how turtles are sun worshippers. Now a new mystery needs solving, what predator took the life of the fish before the scavengers got to him? We've seen large herons in the area, but I think that fish was too big for them and I beleive they swallow prey whole. If anyone in the Austin area knows the local wildlife, I'd love to hear from ya. I'll bring my Pentax *ist D tomorrow so I can share the experience. (2005-07-14 11:12:15.0) Permalink Comments [2]