‘Twas a mystery. Angelpond’s south bank’s overgrown plant life extended eight feet over the water. Not in, but over.
‘Twas it purslane or spurge? The “p” variety became a pretty healthy food option. Spurge could be toxic. It grew so well it resembled an invasive. Only occasionally did it allow an arrowhead plant to emerge.
Arrowhead is considered invasive. Anglekeep likes it because its stems are the birthplace of hundreds of dragonflies.
It seemed unfortunate E. B. Williamson no longer lived. He probably could identify the purslane/spurge conundrum. He was a genius and could identify anything, plant or animal. Dragonflies. Water plants. Birds. Irises. Mushrooms. Even banking. He knew. Ultimately, E. B. became Bluffton’s greatest human asset.
One purslane plant could produce 200,000 seeds, each capable of living 40 years. Purslane grew as an extremely healthy vegetable. Spurge was a scourge. Angelkeep, being unaware of truth, began mucking, not harvesting. Rake out and destroy, rather than top with Caesar’s dressing and croutons.
As Angelpond’s shoreline cleared, many critters celebrated. Deer drank. Birds waded. Frogs croaked. Oops! One bullfrog croaked in a bad way when a great blue heron opted for a frog legs meal rather than fish. Angelkeep once ate frog legs. Just the hind legs. Of course, they tasted like chicken. A heron ate all four legs at once, plus all parts in-between. Head first. The last sighting of bullfrog was the two-foot slide down heron’s long neck. The descending bulge appeared to be a final wave goodbye.
That might have been an Angelkeep Journals’ record for an opening segue (pronounced seg-way) into a topic, today being a kestrel conundrum.
The mucked-out, cleared shoreline of Angelpond looked invitingly beautiful from the kitchen window. Past sweaty work paid dividends once all the critters began enjoying the shoreline again. Sometimes the camera zoom lens provided identification assistance. The pond location’s distance became an observation handicap to an old man’s aging eyesight.
“What’s that on the pond edge?” Gwen asked.
Nikon zoom provided the answer. “Hawk,” said I. Thankfully Gwen didn’t ask, “What kind?”
Hawk identification grew to be an Angelkeep nightmare. Multiple kinds. If you missed last month’s hawk column, you missed “A chance of 10,000 lifetimes.” It identified a red-tail hawk visiting the house patio. It didn’t want to leave. Just like a particular aging old man in his patio rocking chair.
The hawk variety question arose once again. Angelkeep previously identified sharp-shinned, coopers, and last month’s column hero. Indiana supports seven-to-nine hawk varieties, depending on which website could be believed. Angelkeep’s hawk perched on a pond-edge stake defied identification as one of the former visitors.
When Zanesville’s Chaney brothers dug Angelpond in 1999, the empty 15-foot hole was bordered with wooden stakes marking the future pond’s edge based on the level of the overflow ground. All transit-set stakes were perfectly placed. Three yet survived. One served the unknown hawk as a rest perch. The hawk hopped down and drank freely from Angelpond’s mucked edge. It flew away without introducing itself.
One Facebook friend identified it as a kestrel. Thus today’s title: “Kestrel conundrum.” This hawk’s tail failed to match any kestrel photos online. Tail-feather tips held pure snow-white color. The tail’s length measured less than eight inches based on a comparison to the stake’s height. The remainder of the tail-feathers held stripes. Three sets of black and light tan. Black stripes were two-thirds the size of the wider tan parts. White, black, tan, black, tan, black, tan. That distinctive tail failed to match any hawk found online until running across photos of a Northern Harrier.
A Northern Harrier had a white rump. So did Angelkeep’s stake-perching hawk. Breast, beak, eyes, and more matched the harrier. Digital-images.net provided definitive photos. Northern Harriers live year-round in this area and eat mice and frogs, no chickens. Angelpond was a frog pond.
Kestral conundrum culminated.
In the spirit of Wells County Public Library’s One Book One County, and John Green’s “The Anthropocene Reviewed,” Angelkeep gave Northern Harrier four stars. Angelkeep waits to rate kestral.
Mr. Daugherty is a Wells County resident who, along with his wife Gwen, enjoy their backyard and have named it “Angelkeep.”
