Under The Ice

We’re expecting a snow storm,  not so much at the farm, but in Bennington, Vermont where my Bellydance Class is.  So when I decided I wouldn’t be going to class tonight I took a walk instead.

It was cold enough for me to wear my winter coat, a dusting of snow on the ground, the wind heralding the storm.   We went to the woods where the water is flowing again and on the way back we stopped at the pond.

There’s enough water for it to be covered in ice not thick enough for Zinnia to walk on.  Fate ran to the sheep and I got lost peering into the pond as if it were a crystal ball.

I wasn’t expecting to see anything living, but the longer I looked the more I saw.

It was the small diving beetles rowing their way beneath the ice I saw first.  When suddenly a 2 ” oval shape, that I thought was a leaf, turned upside down and dove into the mud.  I’d never seen a diving beetle so big.  It used its legs like a spindle then pressed them to its sides becoming a sleek disk.

Next I saw what I believe is either a diving beetle or  dragonfly larva.  One, then anther and another.  They floated with their backs close to the ice, barley moving.  Skeletal with bulging eyes.

It was movement that got my attention next. The flick of a tail that belonged to a salamander.  There were several, disguised as fallen leaves from the pussy willows that surround the pond.  They moved lazily under the ice their tails mimicking fish.

It was a salamander who led me to the frog.  It sat as still as a shadow, only it’s shape and the texture of its skin giving it away.

After taking a few pictures and videos, I gave up.  The animals under the ice were too hard to photograph.  The shadow of my iPhone always in the way.

So I put my phone away, leaned my butt on the heels of my boots and watched as these insects and  animals swam around each other like a turning kaleidoscope.