A Quiet Night at the Park

Tonight when we went to the park, we saw again two baby rabbits, the size of my fist; in the middle of the road.  They leave the safe, tall, grass around the apple grove, dart out into the road and freeze.  A Red-tailed Hawk hangs out in the park, and some cars speed in or out on the road.  We always honk and shout at the rabbits, who then dart back to the safety of the tall grass.  The apple trees nearest the park are almost hidden by tall bushes.  The deer have eater the tree branches there so that the bottom branches of the trees are flat.

As we drove to the upper pond, we saw only one car in the parking lot.  Two deer were browsing up the hill behind shelter one.  The picnic table where we sometimes sit was piled with towels and clothes.  We tactfully took our canvas camp stools  down to the green grassy peninsula we think of as goose beach, some yards from the table.  The couple, who had been swimming near the shore, swam over to the pier on the dam across the pond, climbed out and snuggled together on the pier.  We thought they might have been skinny-dipping. 

 

Our interest, however. was mostly directed at the (now) eleven geese pecking away at the broad-leafed weeds and clover in the grass  They allowed us to set up our stools within four feet of the flock. They pecked all around us, oblivious.  Suddenly they waddled down to the pond’s edge a couple of feet away and there began to groom themselves, carefully coaxing fat from their bodies down the feathers with their beaks.  They seemed to lie near each other in pairs, excepting the odd goose.  [I read that Canada Geese mate for life;Ox asks how anyone would know that.]  After what seemed like half-an-hour of grooming, they returned to feeding. 

Meanwhile our favorite aquatic mammal swam across the pond from south to north.  We’re pretty sure she isn’t a beaver, as there are no piles of sticks at the pond's edge and also because she hasn’t been relocated by the park staff. We suspect that she's a muskrat.

The bullfrogs were thrumming, their low music and the green (rubberband) frogs provided counterpoint.  The  fireflies lit up randomly, making magic of the dusk, though there are no longer enough of them here to be light raining upwards.

The geese, one by one slid into the pond and made for the fenced-in beach, where they usually spend the night.  We took our cue from them and packed up our camp stools, trudged to the car, and saying peace and goodnight to all the animals in the park, including the young couple entwined on the pier, drove home,  tired and happy..