In CT this week, the egrets not only hovered around the edges of the ice pond (fresh water), shown here, but were found over along the great marsh (salt water), maybe to be shown tomorrow, or so.
A heron was spotted over at the marsh and gulls were in the water with the canada geese on the ice pond. Of course, ducks were cruising around both waterways.
Today’s patrol went to the Mud Pond on the town’s western edge. It is located in the middle of a tract of conservation land and it’s perimeter (of the pond) has zero private property.
It probably isn’t even a mile long and it’s width is what you see here. The trail I used to reach it is the only one officially marked and recognized. These credentials make it a very unusual place in central Maine, where waterfront property is a long-standing extremely desirable asset. It appears that all the shoreline is boggy and fern-and-sedge infested; there is no solid land or beach area from what I can see.
The tract does not allow pets or “bicycles of any kind” and, of course, motorized vehicles. I reach it via a dead-end dirt road which has about three properties with structures and a number of land lots, some are for sale. I have never seen any other visitors during my visit and given the rules and the lack of pond access, I am not surprised.
I suspect this pond would be quite useful as a control for comparing a natural pond environment to the usual Maine pond surrounded by residential and commercial interfaces.