Evening at Puffer's Pond

UMass students Ariel and Dan swimming at Puffer's Pond 
and Snow Geese Taking Flight (starting around 1:41) - 4/24/2013

Last night was a perfect spring evening here in Amherst - light breezes, temperature in the low 60s, the nearly full moon rising over the trees, and daylight hanging on well after dinner. I made my way down the road to Puffer's Pond, where about a dozen people, most of them fishing, had spread out along the perimeter of South Beach. This particular evening's fishing set seemed somewhat younger (most in their twenties) than their morning counterparts, who tend to be a decade or three older. Maybe the fish are hungrier in the morning, or maybe experience really does make a difference, but from what I could see, not many (any?) fish were being caught. One young woman had managed to cast her line into the trees, which resulted in a somewhat amusing scene as she and her friends tried different solutions to free the line. Two UMass students, Ariel and Dan, arrived shortly after the miscasting incident to take a post-homework swim. Given that the water was cold (54°F along the shore and presumably much colder beyond that), the swimmers drew even more attention than the line stuck in the trees. They both started out strong, but Ariel bailed about 30 feet off shore - "I couldn't catch my breath, it was so cold," he observed after he returned to shore. Impressively, Dan made it out all the way to the middle of the pond. 

Perhaps it was all the commotion in the water that set them off, but two Canadian snow geese that had been paddling unnoticed on the northern side of the pond suddenly started honking loudly before they launched themselves into the air, skimmed gracefully above the surface of the water, turned north and disappeared over the treetops. 

The shadows were growing longer, and as I made my way home, the sound of a woodpecker rat-a-tatting high in a tree somewhere merged with the high-pitched chorus of peepers which seemed to emanate from the woods and streams, all around.