Watchers at the Pond. Franklin Russell.

Watchers at the Pond
Franklin Russell
New York: Time Incorporated
1961 (1966)

Why read it? This book describes the changes in the pond during the cycle of the seasons. Gerald Durrell in the introduction says, "This book will show you that the world you live in is a rich and wonderful place and it will show you how little we know about it."

Sample Ideas from the Book:
"These creatures had neither the time nor the instinct to know all the incredible pond." "When the flies began emerging from their sleep, the pond would sound to the roar, rasp, whine, screech, drone and rumble of their wings." "Nowhere did the snow disclose its real structure, which was founded on one constant mathematical fact: every particle of it was formed on some variation of six...and whatever the complexity of a flake each was a perfectly symmetrical unit." "The diversity of life in this miniature universe seemed infinite."

"All pond creatures had particular enemies who perpetually haunted their lives." "In an hour, the bladderwort caught five hundred thousand creatures." "The worm gulped down the rotifer, and the frog swallowed the worm; the kingfisher killed the frog and the hunt passed endlessly from creature to creature." "In death there was life." "Their [the bats'] crazy zigzagging flight branched from mosquito to moth in blind destruction of flying life." "The bats lived in almost a completely dark world of echo."

"The bursting green volvox, the budding youngsters of the hydras, the endless division of amoebae and paramecia, all produced uncountable millions of new lives each day." "The forest hummed softly with a legion of wings." "The lungs of the pond were the leaves." "Billions of [leaves] hung, rustled, whispered, gleamed,and flickered." "...thousands of breathing valves, or stomata, through which the leaf inhaled carbon dioxide and exhaled oxygen." "In one summer, the trees would release more water than was contained in the pond."

Quote: "The lightning burned through the air and created a huge vacuum, into which the vapor-packed air hurtled...created an explosion that rocked the earth, and the concussion fled along the line of the lightning strike and ended with a crackle far beyond the marsh."

Quote: "What makes the sky blue? Each space of air the size of a robin's egg contained more than a million of these particles, and they were filters that reduced the sun's heat and cut out the reds, violets and greens of light from space, allowing only the dominant color of blue to reach the pond."

Quote: "On gusty days...the ducks banked against the marsh wind and made their approaches over the western end of the pond, precise and graceful, coming in very fast and rocking in a gust of wind, then suddenly beating back, dropping their legs, and hissing into the water in smooth motion."

Quote: "Dead nests straggled in their branches as silent manifestants of a surge of life now gone forever."

One of my favorite books. RayS.