Small is beautiful. Take ponds. They’re lively, interesting places, open-air theaters where the dramas of everyday life loom large: love and loss, birth and death, hair’s-breadth escapes and tragic endings. Something’s always happening on (or in) a pond, and the action is even livelier if the pond is bordered by a swamp. Ponds are also good places for novice boaters. They’re the paddling equivalent of skiers’ nursery slopes, great places for adult beginners and kids alike. Anglers of all ages love ’em too, of course.

OK. Just what is a pond, anyway? It’s a wonderfully fuzzy word, I admit. On one hand, suburban homeowners like to boast of the “ponds” they’ve had dug in their back yards, failing to mention that they’re no larger than a child’s wading pool. At the other end of the scale, weary corporate warriors refer off-handedly to “crossing the pond” from New York to London, shrinking the Atlantic to the scale of a beaver flow. Ask a limnologist, however, and you’ll likely be told that a pond is any body of fresh water that’s both shallow enough for rooted plants to thrive everywhere and too small for waves to grow much beyond the ripple stage. Most ponds have mud bottoms, as well, and this is one of the keys to their secret life. Mud is magic. Few aquatic environments are richer.

And then there are vernal pools. Strictly speaking, these short-lived pools of snowmelt aren’t ponds, though some are plenty large enough to float a boat. They, too, offer opportunities for exploration and discovery. Since predatory fish don’t cruise these smallest of small waters, they’re perfect nurseries for frogs and salamanders. Ducks also frequent vernal pools, using them as stop-overs on their long migrations, resting and refueling before flying on.… Read more…

 
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