Category: Botany Pond

Botany Pond is open!

October 14, 2024 • 9:34 am

After two years of closure, and two seasons without ducks, they opened Botany Pond this morning, taking down the fence that had kept us from our beloved body of water.  The pond has been re-lined, made shallower, landscaped, and with an area fenced off for ducks. There’s a new filtration system, too. It looks good, though I’ve had two duckless years.

Here are some photos I just took:

First, main pond, with temporary fencing in the water to allow the water plants to start growing undisturbed. You can see that the two large bald cypresses have been removed, and that the pond is quite shallow.

There are large pebbles (or small rocks) in the shallow part, and then a geometrical design of levels. The pond gets deeper (but still below my chest) in the center.  Note, at upper right, that the cement bench is still there, along with some tables and chairs that have been put on the cement patio.  The building to the left is Erman Hall, on whose windowsills the mallards nest.

The channel, which contains the filtration system (no new water is piped in as in days of yore; rather, the water is filtered and recirculated). The water bill for the old pond was exorbitant, and there were constant leaks, which have been fixed. The end of the channel is designed as a “reflecting pool,” though it’s hard to see what’s reflected. The boulders in the pond are designed to entrap debris which is removed by the filtration system:

A panorama of the whole pond, with the main pond to the north (left) and channel to the south. Click the photo for a full view:

There are two benches at the north end of the pond to facilitate duck- and turtle-watching:

The old cement bench, good for duckwatching, is now supplemented with some tables and chairs:

A panorama of the main pond:

There is lovely landscaping; I’m told that they chose plants that, by and large, are native to the area. The water plants, which include the requisite water lilies, have just been installed (there are tall grasses, too). You can see the pots with the young plants in the foreground.

And, thoughtfully, they have reserved the south end of the pond as a refuge for ducks and ducklings. It’s fenced off from the main area of access by a sturdy metal fence (right) anchored in concrete.  The rocks to the left are designed to allow egress for young and old mallards from the pond.  I hope people stay out of this area. One thing that worries me is that now that the pond is shallow, miscreants will be tempted to jump in and swim.

Where the ducklings will climb out. I hope the stones are low enough to allow an easy exit (the fence will be gone by next spring):

Microfauna (snails, microbes, worms, etc.) have been added to the pond as seeds to allow it to develop, and to provide food for turtles and ducks.  I think they’ll put the turtles back next spring.

Let’s hope that all goes well and we get some nesting ducks in the spring!

Finally, here’s a memoriam to Honey, who is surely in Duck Heaven by now. I had six years with this wonderful female, and she reared over thirty ducklings. Goodnight, sweet duck, wherever you are:

With her adolescent brood:

And the year she kidnapped Dorothy’s brood, winding up with 17 ducklings. All of them fledged! Here they are resting on the central ring, which is no longer there.

Botany Pond opening on hold once again

March 1, 2024 • 11:45 am

We missed a full year of Botany Pond last year, and that meant a dearth of ducks, although we managed to bring up a brood of ten trapped on the roof of a dormitory two blocks north. That was a considerable accomplishment given the difficulty of the task, which involved schlepping water and food over to the dorm three times a week for eight weeks. We also had a somewhat depressing experience with Amy the Library Duck, who couldn’t find her way to the lake several blocks west, and so we had to purloin her offspring and put them into rehab. That was also the case for another lost brood a few weeks earlier.

We had hoped that Botany Pond would be filled with water by June of this year, but even that doesn’t seem to be in the offing, and we may not even get to see the migrating ducks stop by here on their way south.  Below is the announcement from the Chicago Maroon about various delays in reopening the Pond, which is now surrounded by an ugly metal and nylon-mesh fence.

Although the article below starts this way:

According to a University spokesperson, the refilling of Botany Pond along with its bridge repairs are set to be completed this spring, with planting and landscaping occurring over the summer. The re-introduction of the pond’s wildlife will be a gradual process that will begin upon the pond’s refilling, with a focus on re-building the pond’s ecosystem from the ground up in order to ensure its self-sufficiency. According to a University spokesperson, the refilling of Botany Pond along with its bridge repairs are set to be completed this spring, with planting and landscaping occurring over the summer. The re-introduction of the pond’s wildlife will be a gradual process that will begin upon the pond’s refilling, with a focus on re-building the pond’s ecosystem from the ground up in order to ensure its self-sufficiency. It is unclear when Botany Pond will be open to the public again.

Well, they are not going to complete the bridge repairs this spring, nor will the pond be refilled, nor will the bridge be completed. Forget about the planting and landscaping.  Everything is on hold because the University is hurting for money.

Pessimist that I am, I don’t think the pond will be refilled any earlier than the Spring of 2025, which means that we’ll have lost two full wildlife seasons.   This is sad not only because the turtles, fish, and ducks won’t be here to enjoy, but the entire pond, a jewel of the University, will be fenced off and unavailable to the community. People from all around, whether or not they had anything to do with the U of C, would stop by and get respite from their quotidian woes by communing with the pond, its plants and trees and of course its avian wildlife. You can read about the delays below, but I won’t reproduce them as it just makes me sad. Click to read the rest:

Instead of bemoaning the problem, I’ll put up a few photos to bring back memories of brighter days.

Feeding the ducks with the Lab School students, 2017:

Honey and her brood of 17 from 2020. Half of the brood was kidnapped form Dorothy, but Dorothy went on to re-nest and produced her own brood of seven:

Honey as a soccer ball:

Me feeding Honey, 2021:

Honey’s very young babies:

. . . and her teenage brood. Ever watchful, she was the Queen of Duck Mothers:

Roof ducks, last year, with mother Maria. We brought every one up to fledging!

The pond in November, 2022. Work has been very slow, and back then it apparently wasn’t due to lack of money:

Turtles in 2018 (red-eared sliders). They are off somewhere being taken care of, but I wonder if we’ll ever see them again:

The pond in 2018:

Unknown drake and his mate:

Frisky the wood duck sitting on his cypress knob (sadly, they cut down the trees):

Frisky nuzzling his girlfriend Ruth, who flew off on her own:

Is it any wonder I’m depressed?

h/t Charles

The state of Botany Pond

June 10, 2023 • 12:30 pm

All of us are missing our wildlife this year, for Botany Pond is being renovated. We were told that the renovations would begin after convocation (that was a week ago), but we’ve had a week of good weather since then and nothing appears to have been done. The schedule calls for landscaping, fixing the cement walls, putting in a new pond bottom, adding upgraded drains and filters—all done by fall, with the Pond being refilled by October.  Right now it’s just a shadow of its former self.

The gate to the pond was open this morning, so we strolled in and I took a few pictures (click them to enlarge):

From the north end. You can see all the duck circles as well as the barriers, which I didn’t know existed since the mud was so deep that I rarely ran into them. Note that both bald cypress trees were cut down and only the stumps are visible (their roots were going through the cement). The plants are growing wild, as is the Virginia creeper on Erman Hall to the left.

A view from the south looking north.  I never knew those walls were there in the pond, though occasionally I’d bump my leg on something when I was saving ducklings. The bridge over the pond that leads to the channel is to the left. Notice the faux wolf at lower left, put there to scare off the ducks (there are two, but they didn’t work).

A panorama of the pond from the south:

And a faux wolf. They are smaller than they look from afar, and are also made out of plastic (for some reason I thought they’d be furry, but that would be dumb):

We are all suffering from duck and turtle withdrawal.

Botany pond renovation: update

January 1, 2023 • 11:15 am

In the last three weeks, a group of energetic workmen sucked all the mud and gunk out of Botany Pond, revealing its bare bones. It was surprising to me because, as you see, there are cement barriers several feet high throughout the pond and channel (perhaps to keep the mud from shifting?). I never ran into these, which means that the mud rose well above the barriers.

Now that the pond is dry and bare, it’s very sad. They’ll redesign the area over the summer, do the landscaping, fix the cracks in the cement, and then, come next October, fill it with water and add the necessary microfauna.  I hope they will reserve a place for the ducklings to rest and not be bothered by people, but Facilities doesn’t seem too interested in that, which worries me.

We will of course miss duck season this coming spring and summer, and I don’t now if I’ll see Honey again—ever.  With luck we will get a few migrants stopping over for a rest and a drink.

Here’s the view from my office, which is a bit murky as it’s taken through glass. The two bald cedars have been felled, and the cement “duck rings” (beloved as a resting place for little ones) have been moved. (I hope they’ll be replaced.)

You can see the barriers within the pond, and it’s a good thing they were well below the mud level when I was chasing after ducklings this year (31 caught and rehabbed), as I would have found them serious obstacles to duckling capture, as well as banging myself up even more.

View from ground level, taken by holding the camera above the fence. The absence of the cedars is visible, as well as the walls within the pond. I find it all very depressing, especially on a gray New Year’s day, though I know they plan to restore the pond to its past glories. But what will they do for the ducks? Are the turtles still okay at the rehabbers? I have many questions and, of course, anxieties.  I really would like to see Honey again, but she’s an old hen now: she would be eight at the minimum in 2024. Maybe she’ll stop by next fall.

What they’ve done to Botany Pond

December 17, 2022 • 11:15 am

After working for a couple of weeks, a crew of men (no women) have now sucked all the mud off the bottom of Botany Pond, exposing the cement that’s to be inspected for cracks. They’ve also exposed something I didn’t know about: there are barriers of cement in both the pond and channel, but they were so deep under the muck (there must have been three or four feet of mud) that I never detected them. Nor do I know what they’re for.

Plans call for inspection of cement, filling of cracks, and, I hope, regrading the cement so that there are at least two sloping areas where ducklings can exit the pond. Facilities doesn’t seem keen on making any provisions at all for the ducks next year, but we have an advisory biology committee now, consisting of four members, who will recommend amenities for the ducks.  The next step after cement repair is re-filling the pond with soil.

Then, next Spring and Summer, the pond will be landscaped, and if all goes well, will be filled with water in October—just in time for migrating ducks to stop by. They also need to add microfauna to the pond: snails, aquatic animals like worms, and so on, for without those the pond will be sterile, supporting neither fish, turtles, nor ducks.

Here’s the channel: it’s much deeper than I imagined—almost as tall as I am. I never touched bottom or even detected the barriers when I was in there rescuing ducklings.  I’m not sure if the pipes are new. Notice the two cement barriers. What are they for? The pond drain is to the right, at the end of the channel.

A panoramic view of the work. It’s below freezing today, and I feel sorry for the workers. I hope they get paid well! (It’s Saturday; they work six days a week.) The channel is in the foreground, the main pond in the background. Erman, on whose ledges many ducks have bred, is the building to the left.

We will have a duckless season next Spring and Summer, which is sad, as I may not get to see Honey at all.

The Botany Pond renovation

November 24, 2022 • 10:45 am

The renovation of Botany Pond began in late October when they fenced off the entire area and then put traps in the water to get the turtles. They captured 11 large ones, which I think is most of the population we had (five others died during a mini-epidemic). Sadly, they haven’t recovered the two babies we had.  But another one turned up three days ago after the pond had been fully drained, probably buried in the muck. It was alive and in good shape, and is now with its pondmates at the wildlife rehabilitator’s.

It took about a week to drain the pond.

Now, workmen are slowly removing all the dirt, several feet thick, at the bottom of the pond. You’ll see the process in the photos below, but when that’s done, they’ll fill in the cracks in the cement (bottom and sides) that caused the pond to leak water. It really does need a good cleaning

The schedule calls for it to be fully repaired (hopefully with new areas for ducks and new ramps for ducklings) by next summer, and then landscaped and maybe modified for the ducks and ducklings (fingers crosse). The  refill with water is supposed to happen next October. At that time, they’ll restock the pond with the necessary microfauna (snails, copepods, and other stuff that can serve as food for ducks and turtles), and perhaps a duck or so may fly in to see what’s happening. Duck breeding will presumably commence until about March of 2024, as they don’t breed in fall.

This post shows you what the pond looks like now.

Below: The channel drained. Many a duckling was fed at the circular end below, where it was sheltered and they could get close to us.

 

The freshly-drained pond seen from the south side. It was still muddy on the bottom (it’s drier now), and you can see the cement “rings” designed for planting with trees and smaller vegetation:

The pond drained and surrounded by a wire fence. We’re looking south from the sidewalk that separates the main pond (left) and the channel (right):

They brought in two big trucks with hoses to suck the mud out of the pond and expose the cracked cement walls and bottom:

The hose truck. I think the other one (not visible) is where the dirt is put and carted away.

This shows the cross-section after the removal of most of the dirt. The water level was only about a foot below the ledge, so you can see how much dirt had accumulated at the bottom. The water was probably up to my waist, and the silt so thick that my feet never touched bottom.

Sucking up the muck. One guy breaks it up with an instrument that looks like a long pick, while the other uses a hose to suck the loosened dirt into the truck. It’s a big and onerous job.

I am of course very sad, though this needed to be done. But will Honey come back next fall to say “hi”, or will she come back to breed in 2024? We will miss a whole duck season. At least the waterfowl are all gone and presumably safe somewhere else (preferably in the southern U.S.), and all the fish and turtles have been rescued and are being kept by the rehabber.

More reports as things happen. . .

End of the season at Botany Pond

October 9, 2022 • 11:00 am

It’s been a tough year at Botany Pond, mostly because Audrey the Mother Duck, who had 12 babies, was a homicidal hen bent on killing any duckling in the pond that wasn’t hers. And that meant that any mom and babies coming to the pond after her were doomed (she was the first to breed).  In the past we’ve had up to three broods of different ages coexisting pretty peacefully in the pond. Not this year!

After Audrey killed one or two interloper ducklings, I had to make the hard choice to remove every “undocumented duckling” (as we called them) who came to the pond with their mother. The choice was heartbreaking, as it involved separating ducklings from their mothers breaking up a new family, but also ensuring that ducklings wouldn’t be slaughtered en masse.  This meant that this summer I had to go into the pond four or five times and, always helped by people onshore (and a few stalwarts who also went in with me), capture the babies with a butterfly net, dry them off and keep them warm and together,  warm, and then take them to the Chicago Bird Collision Monitors, who would take them to Willowbrook Wildlife Center for rehab, rearing, and release. Many thanks to CBCM and Dorothy, their local contact, who helped us immensely

All told, I rescued 31 ducklings—every single one that wasn’t immediately pecked to death (those were only about 2 or 3). Going into the pond always gives me a case of swimmer’s itch, since that parasite is carried by ducks, and of course I got prettyr banged up by the hidden underground rocks and lunges for ducklings. Here’s what my legs looked like after one of my final rescues. The rash and intolerable itching begin about two weeks later.

My legs after one particularly onerous rescue.

Also, all 12 of Audrey’s babies fledged (our motto is “no duckling left behind”), but we couldn’t prevent one from flying into the library glass across the street, killing itself. We gave it a dignified burial with a stone over its grave in the backyard of a member of Team Duck.

And we suffered the loss of a member of Team Duck: Richard Cook, who died of pancreatic cancer on August 31. He and his wife Karen were instrumental in helping tend the ducks for several years, and it’s not the same without him.

But, looking on the bright side, many people found solace at the pond and watching its attendant wildlife, including, of course, mallards and turtles.  In the last several weeks I’ve met two first-year undergraduates who came here specifically because of Botany Pond, one of them writing her admissions essay on the Pond. The other first-year has now joined Team Duck and has a remarkable way with ducks, so much so that we call her the “Duck Whisperer.”

Sadly, the Management (i.e., Facilities) are going to drain the pond any day now and then dredge it, removing debris as well as patching up cracks in the cement on the side that allow leakage underground. This means that we will not have duck season next year, since this treatment will likely take up a year. (To be honest, the Pond does need a do-over.)  And since the pond will be dredged, we are desperate to ensure that the turtles, who will soon be hibernating in the mud, will be saved—and perhaps returned somehow in the fall of 2023 or spring of 2024.

Here are a few photos of the waning days of duck season and the present incarnation of the Pond.

Two of the three members of the diminished Team Duck: the Duck Whisperer is in the foreground. They are feeding some of the 4-20 ducks that come daily (we have no idea where they go when they leave), but many return every day. But Honey has been here constantly for several weeks, but I was told that she wasn’t there yesterday.

Below: One of the few ducks that has become tame enough to eat from our hand. This one is Billie, a hen with a somewhat misshapen bill that she can’t close completely. This makes her a bit less able to pick up duck pellets but in general she does fine. We of course give extra attention to injured or “off” ducks like Billie.

Billie eating:

Another injured hen was Gigi, who came to the pond with a serious leg injury, so bad that she couldn’t walk, and was clearly in pain. (She was truly a Lame Duck.) We found her floating in the pond with her tail in the water and head resting on the surface–she looked almost dead. We singled her out for special food and attention, and, over the last month or so, she’s recovered almost completely: she can run, walk, flies like a champ, and the swelling on her leg (a calcified knot, I think) is almost gone. This makes me very happy.

When it got colder, the turtles took every advantage of the sunshine by climbing on the rocks and extending their necks and limbs to get as warm as they could. We call this Turtle Yoga. Three examples:

And so it’s farewell to Duck Season, and to the pond and ducks we all love. They will be back—probably in the Spring of 2024—but will Honey be among the mallards? She’s been here six years in a row and I am keen to see her again. Wild mallards don’t live forever (the average is 5-10 years, and she’s already at least seven.

I’m told that the Pond is still intact, and they haven’t yet fenced it off.  In my absence, Team Duck is looking after the mallards who remain and (we hope) will soon be flying south.

They have disabled the “On Botany Pond” live feed, I suppose for the renovation, so you won’t be able to watch the place online.