I guess the old adage "desperate times call for desperate measures" rings true a good bit, here on the Bayou. With the north winds of winter hitting the Bay, the tide is often far out from the shoreline. This creates a problem for many of the shorebirds as the fish all move to deeper water. Waders such as egrets and herons scavenge the tide pools while others such as pelicans and gulls usually just move with the fish. However, sometimes the gulls are just too lazy to go hunt for their food. Gull are notorious thieves and will steal fish right from a pelicans bill or fight over some tidbit dropped by another bird. They are not picky eaters and will gulp down anything that resembles a meal. This morning's hike to the pier proved that bit about their selection of a meal. It was not a pretty sight.
As the old dog and I watched the few birds that remained on the mudflats, one lone seagull caught my eye. This bird was not doing the normal diving that gulls are prone to do. Instead, it was wading which is a rather unusual tactic for a gull. I pondered what was attracting the gull to wade in knee-deep water when suddenly the bird darted for something under the water. With its head still beneath the surface, the gull tugged for all its worth on something. Then, up came the head, the bird gasped for breath and went back to work on its meal. It was a bob and drag ordeal for several minutes before the bird managed to break free its quarry. The bird was one happy camper with its....long dead fish. Obviously, someone had recently cleaned fish and dropped the scrap remains overboard. This is a practice of most local folks as the fish remains draw other fish, crabs and, obviously, birds. The gull had been tugging on the long skin of one side of a pretty nice sized fish. The remains of the fish were half buried in the sloppy mud and it was quite the strenuous ordeal for the gull to extricate the skin. A good ten minute battle with the dead fish gave the gull its breakfast albeit a rotten one. Like I said...gulls are not picky eaters.
It is getting on to that time of year again when an occasional stiff wind will kick up from the north. Besides the obvious fact that our air will be a wee bit cooler, the humidity lessens making it all the more comfortable. Fall and winter are my favorite seasons for so many reasons but the main one is that I feel better then. Starting about September and on through March, my health seems to improve! How can I not like the cold?
With that north wind comes lower tides. A brisk north wind will shove the water out of the Bayou and Bay leaving behind large mudflats along the shoreline. As the tides recede, interesting things will be uncovered. Whatever the summer storms pushed into the area will now be exposed. Sometimes, interesting things can be found along the shorelines. It was this time of year, that my kids used to love to go "scavenging". I would take the three of them out in a tiny skiff and we would pole along the marsh line in search of "treasure". To this day, the kids still talk about our close encounter with a large alligator on one of these outings! That, however, is a tale for another time! While I poled, the kids would peer over the side of the skiff into the shallows. If something was deemed interesting, they would call out and we would all take a look. Then, my oldest son usually would reach into the water to retrieve the great find. I have to admit that occasionally they did indeed find something usable or keep worthy. Sometimes a fishing rod and reel would be the treasure. Once a minnow trap complete with "cannibal bull minnows" was the haul. (Cannibal minnows were labeled thus because the poor things had been trapped for so long that they had taken to eating each other to survive.) Another time, an antique milk bottle from their great-grandfather's dairy was discovered stuck in the mud. That treasure still sits on the kitchen shelf! Other times, the find might include some trinket lost by a boater or something the wind blew from a nearby pier. Whatever we retrieved from the shallows would be the "find of the day". The kids thought this was great fun. What they did not know was that we were actually cleaning up our part of the Bay. Along with the treasures, we always hauled in a bucketful or so of trash to be discarded properly.
Yesterday's low tide brought to light so many interesting things. Most were things like driftwood pieces or boards. If the old skiff was usable, the logs would be hauled out of the mud and onto shore. These are nothing but snags to catch our line or rip our net. Since the kids are now grown, we do not go on our scavenger hunts. The cleaning has become just another chore. I need to find a few neighborhood kids around here to go on "hunts"just to keep things fun!
