A BROOK'S DEEP

     One August afternoon in 2023, I discovered a "deep" of water about twenty feet long, twelve feet across and two feet deep.  It was part of a little, running brook in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania cropland.  Tall grass, Queen-Anne's-lace, daisy fleabane, common milkweed and other tall plants surrounded that little deep right up to its shoreline.  I  used binoculars to look into that hole's clear depths for aquatic wildlife living in it.     

     Crayfish were the most common creatures in that deep.  Several of them, of all ages and sizes, walked along the muddy bottom in search of algae, rotting materials and other edibles.  They were a bit difficult to locate and see because they were so well camouflaged on the mud, and by the rocks they hide under when not looking for food.

     A small school each of killifish and blunt-nosed minnows swam gracefully into the slight current of the deep and watched for invertebrates to be carried into the deep by the brook's current.  Lean fish, they were stream-lined for life in stream currents.  And they, too, were tough to spot because they are camouflaged above the mud and rocks on the bottom.  Often, I saw their shadows on the muddy bottom before I saw the fish themselves.  

     Scanning about with my binoculars, I saw two large, majestic bull frogs sitting at the water's edge, under over-hanging, tall grass.  Green by green, those frogs, too, were camouflaged as they watched for invertebrates to ingest.  I would not have seen them without field glasses.  

     Those bull frogs were one of each gender.  Perhaps there will be tadpoles in that deep sometime.

     A muskrat swam from one side of the pool to the other, and under grass bent into the water.  It may have swam into a streamside burrow it dug into a low streambank.  Muskrats consume grass, cattails and other aquatic vegetation.  

     I noticed three attractive species of the dragonfly family of insects, including a male white-tailed skimmer, a green clearwing dragonfly and a male bluet damselfly.  Each one was occasionally entertaining zipping low over the water in pursuit of flying insects to eat.  

     A song sparrow and a male American goldfinch were each moving about among the tall grasses and other vegetation at the water's edge.  Both these lovely kinds of small birds eat weed and grass seeds, but they also get food from the water's edge.  Song sparrows patrol the muddy shores for invertebrates while goldfinches regularly eat algae in the shallows.  Both species nest in shrubbery in croplands.

     As I watched the wildlife in that one little deep in a brook, I began remembering other wildlife I experienced in similar holes in Lancaster County.  I recall seeing, and hearing the gulping and twanging of green frogs in such deeps.  Raccoons visit such holes to catch crayfish and frogs.  Belted kingfishers perch in trees near a deep or hover on beating wings as they watch the water for minnows to catch and consume.  And I have seen green herons and great blue herons at these pools to snare minnows, frogs and crayfish.   

     Some of these holes are homes to water striders and whirl-a-gig bugs on their surfaces; and pond snails on aquatic plants and the muddy or stony bottoms.  Small as they are, these deeps can harbor a lot of interesting wildlife. 

     

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