December on Puffer's Pond

Geese on Puffer's Pond - 12/5/2015
Photo by S. Vardatira

12:15 pm: Now months removed from the summer's onslaught of swimmers, Puffer's Pond has returned to the waterfowl, as it does every fall and early winter. Although today's sun is pouring down out of a cloudless, blue sky, it is a brisk 40 degrees near the water, not as warm as all that light would suggest. And still, the birds seem unperturbed by the chill in the air. I have noticed that the ducks and geese never co-mingle even though they are only a few hundred feet apart. Right now, the geese are bobbing, almost motionless, where the ducks usually reside, near where Mill River flows into the pond. From a distance, they look like grey/white puff balls balanced on the surface of an slightly fuzzy mirror. The ducks, I assume to avoid the geese, have moved to the southeast corner of the pond near the bridge. They are particularly noisy this morning, complaining about this and that (I imagine about the geese, mostly). A woman with two dogs passes by on the upper walking trail. "Stay... heel... slow down." Her training commands, calm and steady, interrupt the ducks' quacking and flapping. A squirrel scampers, vertically, up a nearby tree trunk, and I head towards home.