Having a mild spell the last couple of weeks. A thin layer of ice forms at night but doesn't hold up during daytime temps. Just have a floating section in the middle. The pond has been dropping in late fall after rains stopped. I decided to use the hose to raise it again to try to 'overfill' it a bit and hope when cold comes we will have more ice skating surface for the kids to enjoy.
The filling up process gave a new ice-free zone of warm well water all around the edges with the ice floe floating and shrinking every day in the middle.
Right on cue the pesky GBH showed up to do some scouting of the pond edges for anything edible. I'm not sure what he/she found. My kids told me that about a week before the GBH showed up and was walking around on top of a paper thin layer of ice. Why he would do that and what he was thinking I have no idea. I also know that if he fell through there is no way he could have taken off to fly away as they have a hard time getting airborne. I was kind of hoping he would fall through so that my crayfish, RES and turtles could have turned that trouble maker into a rack of white bones on the bottom!
I tossed some optimal feed and sure enough the shiners were happy to zoom over and fill their bellies. I hope some of the YP and RES got some but not sure. The YP mommas got to be filling out their eggs by now!
I threw some pellets up on the ice hoping that as it melts this will be a new 'slow release' method of feeding
Now we just need steady cold weather to get some hard water!
