Pond Life, Bartlett Pond, White Horse Beach, Manomet, Plymouth, Massachusetts, USA

These plant stalks spent the winter sticking out of the pond. Some strange sequence of freezing and melting has created these mushroom-shaped cones of ice.  Just another example of the endless wonders of pond life. The pond is a place where life unfolds at its own pace - geese and swans and herons honk or squawk or flap by, buffleheads and cormorants dive and resurface, a turtle or muskrat slips smoothly beneath the surface of the water, the wind rustles through the trees, with or without leaves, a squirrel or rodent scurries by -  it is the inexorable march of the seasons on parade as the winter gives way to the warmth and longer days of spring.