Bees, Ducks, and Baby Bullheads
Returning from a funeral in Ottawa on the 18th of July, I stopped to visit my favorite spot on the Jock River. The riffle, at summer low-water, was a pattern of dry stepping stones emerging from a cobbled bottom tapestried with fluffy yellow-green filamentous algae. Several Honey Bees were roving about, sipping at the soft wet algal fringes of my stepping stones. A female Mallard was quietly minding her own business, leading her three nearly full-grown ducklings to dabble in the shallows. One, which seemed darker plumaged than the others, napped on a stone. I searched about for clams and crayfish among the stones, not willing to get my feet wet today, but all I found were a few clam shells and the shed skin of a Crayfish. No Zebra Mussels. If they're here, they are not obvious yet. The smaller shells were Strophitus undulatus , the clam that fascinated Fred at this place when he began to study fresh water unionids a decade ago. Then I pulled a heavy dark, slightly gaping, em...