Flashes of Panic

As I’ve noted, it’s melting around here. The melt-water is pooling wherever it can find a low spot, and as I was walking along the Norwottuck Rail Trail in Hadley this afternoon, I saw one smallish pool with a pasture fence running through the middle of it; clearly, this was the spring-thaw equivalent of a tide pool, dry by June. In the pool, on either side of the fence, were two pairs of mallard ducks. Hopefully not nesting pairs, I thought, but just in case, I called down to them, “That one’s just temporary, so it’s not a good nest site. Try Puffer’s instead, once the ice is out.”