July 27

Two Great Blue Herons were taking an early morning flight around the lake and the wetlands, this morning. One of them flew down to a tree branch while the other stood under a tall palm tree that grew across the lake from the Landing. Both birds stretched their necks to look around. It was a picturesque scene.

The young yellow-Crowned-Night Heron was looking into the tiny inlet at the right side of the kayak dock, where erosion created a tiny inlet, and sometimes, small fish and crayfish are trapped in there. The bird seemed knew that the crayfish was unable to escape. I could see the bird was relaxed, following the movement of the crayfish for a while and then gobbled it up.

Mr. Wallendorf, a manager of the Lake was on the way to the diving facility with his diving partner, Mr. Heard. They were to clean the bottom of the lake. I was glad that he gave me the location of a black chinned Hummingbird nest at the Bald Cypress tree, and he added that the nest was tiny. I was surprised about his excellent observation. I tried for weeks, but I was unable to locate it.

Mr. Wallendorf also told me about the web worms that are quickly spreading around Aquarena; especially, two trees beside the closed Aquarena restaurant and one tree next to the diving facility. Parts of those trees were covered with webs. I asked him what the solution was to get rid of these worms. He said that as they would not be able to use chemicals, the only way is to open up the web and let wasps eat the worms, solving the problem the natural way. Mr. Wallendorf and Mr. Heard hurried to the diving facility for their diving work.

Rick, the landscaper who has been working at the Aquarena Center for 26 years was busy pruning the branches in front of the Aquarena Gift Shop. After he pruned drooping branches, the gift shop became brighter as if the gift shop took its hat off to welcome the people.

When I tried to drive off the Aquarena Center, I saw something going on in the Pecan Grove. There were five Archaeology students digging three small square holes near the headsprings. They were looking for artifacts left by the Indians who lived here centuries ago. An instructor told me that the survey was for the future development plan of the Aquarena. I was excited to see the excavation!

The shovel was narrower than a regular shovel and each shovel of soil was poured into a rectangle soil shifter. Students shifted the soil and what remained l was carefully examined by hand to see whether there were any artifacts left in the shifter. It is hard tedious work. One student said that she found a shell. It was interesting to hear that there were shell fish in the lake decades ago. How about current time?

Every artifact they found was listed with the location and the depth on the brown bag and individually stored. I asked the instructor how deep they would dig. She said that about two feet.

Mr. Ron Coley, the director of the Aquarena Center came to see how the project going. He told me they did an underwater dig in the lake last week, and found several interesting artifacts from the bottom of the lake. The Aquarena Center is filled with excitement.