Reedy Pond park, Woodlands, Texas: Ducks, Dragonflies, and Fish

This is a walking tour of the pond on one early Sunday morning. A late season brood of ducks has highlighted the life on the pond during the past week. There were no ducks on it two weeks ago and suddenly one female arrived, built a nest and incubated her 10 little ducklings. Nine have survived the first week. These little fluffy creatures follow their mama's instructions. It is amazing to see the mama seemingly not do anything to tell the babies what to do, but the babies follow whatever she wants in unison. Look closely and you will recognize some of these behavioral patterns in the photos.


This day, the fish were waiting for a handout.

I tried to catch varying lighting situations as the morning sun shined through the brush and into the water; the results are apparent.
Suddenly I noticed quite a few Dragonflies. Their adult lives are very short, about 60 days.

And then there is also more than one species.
Click on any of these photographs and you will be directed to a folder containing these and related photographs from the same shoot in Flickr.com. By the way, the fish in these photos are probably no longer alive. A man brought his 6 or 7 children to the pond the same afternoon and put everything he caught in an ice chest. Of course when I asked him if he knew this was a catch and release pond, he said "no", even though there are two signs on the property, one just a few feet from where he was fishing. Then after he told me his lie,trying to justify has action, he added, "I know many people who come here who do the same thing." I am guessing that he drive 60 in a 45 MPH zone in The Woodlands, because he knows other people that do that also. The children were trashing the area, throwing cans, paper and cartons around while the dad continued to fish. I called for a park ranger who came and talked to them.

I explained to the man that I hoped he was going to clean up behind himself and that I wanted the fish back in the pond. I go to clean up behind such people everyday. They leave their ugly trash in this beautiful pond and around it. It is essentially up to residents to clean up behind them.