Dead Fish Falling From the Sky

  Sometimes it pays to keep a watchful eye on your surroundings.  Other than the obvious threat of stepping on a cottonmouth while traipsing about the marsh, I usually feel relatively safe here on the Bayou.  With it being wintertime, even the threat of a snake is nil.  I do, however, worry about the old dog, Mr. PJ.  He is not accustomed to the hazards that come with living "in the wild".  So...I keep a watchful eye out for his safety.  He is great as protection...when he is aware of his surroundings but with age, his senses have dulled a bit and he often overlooks things.  Just today, that became apparent.

  I have always trained the dogs to do their "business" way down near the marsh on the east side of the property.  Here, there are two possible trails and the dogs have always preferred the lower one.  This way, I do not have to worry about a misstep into "their" territory.  My moccasins stay clean!  I usually just tell the dogs to "go down the hill" and do not have to lead them.  This has always worked in the past as it frees me from having to have a leash for the dogs and, also, gives the dogs a bit of "privacy" for their daily business trips.  Periodically, I do a check on the lower path just to make sure no potential hazards have popped up....or in today's case....plopped down.  

  I meandered down the lower path only with intentions of photographing a baby raccoon that was feeding on the mudflats. The little rascal scampered as soon as I neared the site so I decided to do my "path check", instead.  It is a good thing that I did.  That little raccoon could have inadvertently saved Mr. PJ, the dog, a good bit of pain.  The remains of a large catfish were sitting with the spine poking straight up.  Had the dog blindly been running down the path, he could have possibly stepped right on that spine.  There is nothing worse than getting one of those barbed fins stuck in your flesh and this one was a good four inches long.  That poor dog would have had an immediate emergency trip to the vet!  Obviously, an osprey had caught the catfish and carried it to the top of the tall pine along the edge of the path.  Here, the bird feasted but then dropped the hard head with fin intact.  The head fell with the dorsal fin sticking up like an arrow.  That fin and the pectoral fins are the ones that will do damage if they puncture flesh.  

  While it was about as nasty as things can get, I gingerly picked up the fish head by the dorsal fin and tossed it far out into the marsh.  There, Mr. PJ will never step on it.  Sometime during the night, I am positive that an otter or raccoon will make short work of the osprey's leftovers.  What bothers me most is that if the osprey has chosen this spot as its main roost, there will be more fish remains plopping down on that lower path.  This means that I will have to do daily checks instead of weekly or Mr. PJ may just have to choose to use the upper path as his bathroom.  We shall see.

The Silver Lining...Maybe?

  Early this morning, Mark and I headed to the pier to do a bit of fishing. He was actually going to use the small skiff but I was staying behind on the pier.  I want to be able to head to the house if the fish are not biting. There is just far too much to do in the garden to sit lollygagging about if I am not catching lunch.  All was well with the morn.  It was a beautiful day opening and I was enjoying the slight northeast breeze...until...Mark opened the live-well of the boat and found that he had inadvertently left a few menhaden there overnight.  Not good...in fact, bad or even terrible!  The things had died and had become quite rank in the humid air.  Ugh!  It was bad enough that the boat smelled like a garbage heap but, then, he scooped said little dead fishies and tossed them into the water.  UGH to a greater extent!  Now the whole place smelled like a city dump!  STOP!  I called to him.  Move on away from the pier before you toss any more dead things!  He did and I thought all would return to normal.  It did not.  The minnows were quite swollen and they bobbed along the ripples like little buoys.  Each bounce released another malodorous spew of stench into the air. Double ugh!

  At the time I thought that I could not stand the reeking dead fish bobbers any more, a seagull came to my rescue.  Down swooped one bird and it scooped up a mushy, stinking-to-high-heaven minnow.  The bird was the envy of all gulls and terns that eat dead things floating on the surf.  Several squeals later, another gull dove to fetch its own putrid fish.  Well, at least they were cleaning the water (and the air).  One after another, the birds dove after the minnows giving me the perfect opportunity to snap a few closeup photographs.  

  Once I settled down enough to observe the pictures that I had taken, I realized that the stench that ruined my fishing trip was not all bad.  The rising sun as a backdrop and birds diving just a few feet from my camera lens provided a perfect setting for some excellent photographs. The morning turned out well,  I got great pictures and the birds feasted on putrid fish.  Sometimes things we deem as bad do have silver linings.  We just have to look for them.