Wildlife

So, there's this creek I cross everyday on my way to school. I've often paused to watch and listen to it when I cross it; there's something soothing about the sight and sound of running water. It was never anything special, really, just a pleasant interlude. Then, last year, things changed.

First, a tree on a sandbar in the middle of the creek was cut down, creating open air above the creek. Then, some kids used bricks and rocks to build dam next to the sandbar, turning that part of the creek into a little pond. The sleepy little creek came to life.

Last spring I started to see birds in the creek that I'd never seen there before. Mallards. Egrets. A Great Blue Heron. A pair of Common Mergansers. A Green Heron. And, swooping through the trees and down the creek, an Osprey.

In August I noticed a bunch of tiny ripples on the water's surface as I walked by. I stopped to see what caused them. Trout! I'd never seen anything but tadpoles and water skeeters in the creek before, but now there were trout! Hundreds of tiny fingerling trout, plus one that was about 6 inches long. Cool. I started to checking on them everyday, hoping for rain that would raise the level of the pond enough to allow the fish to go out to sea. Most of them never made it.

The birds discovered the trout too. First it was just a pair of mallards, but one day I counted 15 mallards in the pond (this begs the question: can ducks communicate?). The egrets and herons came back too.

Now, as I cross the creek, I'm likely to see a pair of mallards and an egret or two. On the surface of the creek there is nary a ripple to be seen. I hope the rains came early enough to allow at least a few of the fish to escape.