Oddly Enough....

  It was strange.  While on the pier early this afternoon, I heard a very clear rasping sound.  It almost sounded as if someone was crunching potato chips but no one was in the area, so this could not be.  Oddly enough, the sound was coming from the water and not the marsh.  Well, strange things always need investigating so I plopped down on the pier to be nearer the water.

  Since we have been have lots of rain, the water is clear making it quite easy to find the source of the crackle.  A blue crab was clinging to a barnacle encrusted board that was used to stabilize the small skiff.  That raspy sound was the crab's claws on the barnacles.  Oh, my!  The blue crab was actually raking out the small critter inside the shell.  The crab was dining on barnacles!  

  Barnacles, themselves, are arthropods and are actually kin to crabs and lobsters.  I never knew that the crabs would eat the barnacles but, then again, crabs eat most anything.  Apparently, this fellow was hungry enough to work for his snack.  So, barnacles were on the menu.

  The mystery was solved!  I now have a new tidbit of useless information to pass along to visitors to the Bayou.  That's what makes life interesting...useless information!  It is the stuff you can twist and turn to make tall tales seem much taller!