urban critter watching

[icehousebob]

The city of Minnetonka dug a drainage pond in the valley behind my house the winter before last. At first it looked like an ugly scar on the land, but they planted cover plants and trees and its looking better. I've been cleaning up the covering scum and put in an aireator and its doing well. SO, I got off work at 7am this morning and got home shortly after. I opened a beer and in the time it took to slurp it, I saw 18 ducks, 25 geese, several song birds, a red fox, and two deer, one was a nice 8 pointer. Yesterday, besides the other critters, I had an egret come in, chase off a blue heron, and challenge my egret decoy to a fight. As a bonus, the pond is filled with minnows and it saves us a bunch on bait buying. Not bad for living in the middle of an urban area, huh???

[Ely Lake Expert]

So where are the pictures?

[icehousebob]

I'm quite possibly the world's worst photographer. In the last two years, I've half filled two disposable cameras and then had the two Bassetts from Heck chew them up and so I lost all my pictures.

I have two goose, three duck, and one egret decoy in the pond by my back yard and yesterday my bride looked out our back window and asked me why I had put so many more decoys in the pond. I told her to look close and see how many of them were moving and weren't decoys. This morning, I put out another bunch of corn for them and I wasn't back in the house before there was a mob scene on shore to get to it. They have me well trained.

[Steve Foss]

Hey Bob: No worries about pics, mate. You've got a great little retreat in your own back yard. There aren't many urban areas as speckled with pockets of lakes, sloughs and woods as the Twin Cities. That could almost make it worth living there.

[The_Duckslayer]

Quote:

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That could almost make it worth living there.

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I like the way you put that... "almost worth living there"

I am not in the country but there are sure enough not thousands of cars a day going by my place, through town maybe but not past my place. No folks that think that I should listen to their music even though I am in my house with the windows shut either! Would love to have a 40 acre hobby farm somewhere but, alas, can't afford that on my budget. Have a good one and N Joy the Hunt././Jimbo

[vern]

Sounds like a cool spot Icehousebob. I've noticed more wildlife in the city now than I've ever seen before. I have a fox family, deer, turkeys, woodchucks, pheasants, hawks & many other critters next to my place of work in St. Louis Park. I'm less than 1 mile from Lake Calhoun in Minneapolis.