December pond - our poor fish.

I was so excited today when I woke up. I could see it wasn't raining and I was anxious to get some nice pictures of the pond. Yesterday I had planned to do my monthly pond post, those plans were changed however when I discovered our own indoor waterfall. The hot water tank in the garage was leaking all over the garage floor. So, the plan of going to the nursery with the Littlest Gardener and my mom for lunch was quickly changed. We were very lucky that we were able to have it replaced yesterday and could all have nice hot showers today.
After walking the Littlest Gardener to school I went outside to see birds and a squirrel enjoying the pond and the feeders nearby.

Doesn't this look like a nice view to see? Such nice lighting today!

As I got closer to the pond I noticed the water looked very cloudy, no plants were knocked over so I knew it wasn't from the raccoons. When I looked closer I noticed I couldn't see any fish! I was so sad, especially when I found some colorful scales on the edge of the pond. It had to have been a heron. I've seen one once a year ago in the pond, but no fish were missing. A couple of weeks ago the Littlest Gardener told me there was a flamingo on our deck. As I rushed to see what she was talking about I saw a huge heron fly away.

During the icy weather I saw heron fishing along a slough close to our house and thought it seemed strange. There are nesting grounds very close to here and that's usually where we see them flying to. In order to give the remaining fish some added safety I found a crate and put a brick on top of it and put them in the pond. I just feel awful about this. These fish were like pets, many we had for 3 or more years. We lost the 2 Koi and I can't even think about the others that were hand picked by my girls. They will be brokenhearted when I tell them. I know this is nature and how things are, but we've never had a loss of fish like this before.

As if sensing my sadness the little hummingbird that's been faithfully visiting stopped to rest right next to me and just sat there. It really made me feel better.

Here she is at the feeder before she left. I've been able to leave the feeder out at night now that it's not freezing. One morning as I reached out the window to hang it back up I noticed the hummingbird sitting on the trellis about 3 feet from me, just waiting for her food.

Sweet Pea also asked me to invite people to see her blog. She's actually had it for quite awhile, but doesn't post very regularly. She took some hummingbird pictures recently and yesterday posted the pictures. I'm amazed at how easily she goes about writing her post and loading pictures, etc. Her blog is called Gardening with Sweet Pea.