Fairy shrimp, Cote

In the Harry Potter series, one of the courses at Hogwarts that makes a frequent appearance is called "The Care of Magical Creatures." Well, around here, we don't have flobberworms, hippogriffs, or Blast-ended Skrewts, but Fairy Shrimp, however diminutive, are magical enough to make the grade. I found these when I was out this evening in search of American Toad eggs, and though I discovered plenty of tiny tadpoles, there were no strings of eggs in sight. (If the eggs were deposited on that amazing courtship night I wrote about on 1 April, they may have already hatched.) But as I stood still in the middle of the hayfield vernal and scanned the clear water with my headlight, I noticed the beginning of a congregation of these inch-long invertebrates, whose 11 pairs of swimming legs row them, doing the eternal backstroke, through the pond. The female in the middle of the image is carrying the eggs that, after they're shed and the shrimp are long gone, will make it through dry conditions, then cold and snow, to hatch when the pond reappears next winter. A fine magic, indeed.