Goose Hollow Pond Lives Up To Its Name

By Jeffrey M. Bowen

I never paid much attention to ponds until one greeted us more than 30 years ago when we purchased a 15-acre rural plot that we eventually named Goose Hollow. The pond is about four acres, and it lies at the lowest point of our land at the foot of a steep 200-foot hill above our house.  Water drains down into the pond, and seeps into it through swampy springs at the north end.  At the south end is a grassy dike with a sluice through which water drains when spring rains cause an overflow. 

My simple physical description of our pond is inadequate.  Its presence reminds us of an observation made about wildlife in the 1993 film Jurassic Park: “Life finds a way”.  Originally dredged by the Army Corps of Engineers in the 1950s, the pond was officially designated a flyway for migrating Canada geese.  Although that is no longer the case, our pond is a nesting spot for several pairs of geese each spring.  They nest immediately after the ice breaks up.  Within a day of hatching, apparently the downy yellow offspring can walk, swim, and feed themselves. 

 After a few weeks, their parents and watchful uncles take the goslings on day trips. They march in line out of the pond, across a cornfield, and into another nearby pond for the day.  By fall, multiple squadrons woosh in at dusk and stay the night before noisily taking flight early in the morning.  We have learned their habits, and we laugh watching them try to fly in a wedge.  At first they fail miserably, but by early autumn they do considerably better. We marvel at their monogamy and dedication to caring for their young.   Canada geese are considered messy pests by some, but we regard them as the stars of our ecosystem.

Adding lively variety to our mere (small pond) are ducks, water snakes, frogs, turtles, solidary herons, and even muskrats.  Apparently fish cannot survive winters in our shallow pond.  White-nose syndrome has killed off most of our bats.  However, peepers annually signal the warming days of spring with a resounding chorus of high-pitched chirping.

 Ancient snapping turtles and deep mud have always kept us from wading into the water. Instead our Labrador retriever Goose relished swims and always emerged with a smelly residue which was surely his favorite perfume.

Our ecosystem features wildflowers that thrive along the margins of the pond. Descriptively named, they include water picklers, eastern blue-eyed grass plants, pickerelweed, irises, arrowheads, queen Anne's lace, and cattails.  Daffodils wave in early spring breezes, and banks of goldenrod seem like a summer finale.  Pond weeds and bullrushes are abundant.

 Our naive ignorance of aquatic vegetation has taught us a lesson or two. As summer heightens in July, the pond loses depth and allows what we now know as invasive milfoil weeds to grow from the muddy bottom to clog the surface. With growing irritation, I decided to combat the “infestation” with an expensive infusion of triploid grass carp.

 According to the fish and game department, they consume large quantities of milfoil but do not multiply because they arrive having been neutered. Unfortunately, the fish died out and never made headway in the weeds.  We think the heron punched holes in many of them.

The bullrushes presented another dilemma.  From the upper end of the pond, clumps would break loose and embed themselves in the soggy margin of our dike at the lower end.  Their presence obscured our pristine view. Once again annoyed, I convinced my wife to row me up to these tall reeds, whereat I would grab hold and try to pull them out.  Soon I realized each stalk rests on a heavy muddy cannonball of roots.  Finally we hired a backhoe to root them out.   

An old iron bench at the foot of our pond sets the scene for changing foliage, flowers, and water reflections.   We savor peaceful walks along our dike.  Goose Hollow pond is an awe-inspiring ecosystem where everything we see is connected to everything else.  As the pond’s grateful protectors, we are just part of the plan.