Jan 2, 2008

Lifebird #28 - On Gervais Ponds

The Great Egret and the Canada Goose were the first birds at the Gervais Mill Ponds of Little Canada that Joann and I checked off in our copy of Birds of Minnesota and Wisconsin. Since this time, we’ve developed a special relationship with the ponds, and as I write this in 2010, we have identified 104 species at the ponds.^[1]

Though we walk our dog Katie at the ponds almost daily, and have done so since we moved to our house in 2002, it wasn’t until May of 2006 that we bothered to bring binoculars with us on these walks and to make any sort of effort at all to find birds there. What a revelation it was when we did.

Binoculars aren’t needed to see the large, graceful Great Egret. We see them fishing the ponds every year. We see fishermen working the ponds all the time, too. I’ve seen lots of casts, but I don’t recall ever seeing a fisherman in the act of pulling a fish out of the water. Egrets, on the other hand, never seem to come up empty when they strike.

Species	Great Egret / Ardea alba
Where	USA-MN-Ramsey-Gervais Mill Ponds
When	Apr 2004
With	Joann
Number	28

See lifebird index.

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Notes

Today, as I re-edit this page, we live in Shoreview a bit more three than three miles as the egret flies from our Little Canada home and the ponds. We once organized the FOGCAP (Friends of Gervais Creek and Ponds). I built and maintained a website, and we organized and led a “Spring Cleanup Day” for a few years. We will always remember the place fondly, and it will forever remind us of the inimitable Katie Dog. We imagine Katie as Queen of the Ponds, gamboling playfully on its paths somewhere over the Rainbow Bridge. [^]