Lots of comings and goings this morning.

If you have been wondering when and if the mosquitoes would follow the rain we’ve had lately, well, wonder no more because they sure as heck are here now. Zoinks! I had no idea how haphazard my insect repellent application had become during the drought until this morning when the little stinkers let me know of every patch of skin I missed.

Luckily for us, the bigger critters are better prepared or just don’t care and were out in their usual numbers anyway. First up is one we haven’t seen in over a month, the muskrat in the pond, and this morning it appeared to be contentedly munching on something I can’t quite see out in the water.

Yup. That’s its big ol’ black tail sticking out of the water behind it.

I didn’t see much else and thought maybe the sun might peek out later so I headed to the river, but I really couldn’t dawdle today, as I could in the past, so I found myself at the north end pretty soon, and the most interesting sight was this trio of mergansers. They were pretty far out on the water, and the light was still pretty low, so it’s not the best image, but I suspect they are female hooded mergansers just like the solo hen we saw earlier this week.

Back at the pond, a blue heron was fishing in the east bay as the wood duck hen and her ducklings lounged on their usual log.

There was a slight breeze to keep the skeeters down so I made myself comfortable on the bench and waited patiently to see if the heron would do anything interesting. After a bit, someone walked by and flushed out a green heron that I hadn’t spotted. Happily, I didn’t need to move so it ignored me and got right back to fishing. First it grabbed a frog.

Then it moved to a new spot and quickly followed up the frog with a nice little fish.

Meanwhile, the blue heron was having little success, and it appears that all the mallards checked out overnight, even the ducklings. All I could see was the solo black duck hen and the wood ducks. So it goes, eh?