Journal of a Sabbatical

July 30, 2000

a pile of dead fish

Today's Bird Sightings:
Watchemoket Cove
mallard (13)
mute swan (41)
herring gull (5)
great egret (4)
snowy egret (5)
house sparrow (22)
domestic goose (2)
Canada goose (38)
common tern (2)

Today's Reading: Kingbird Highway by Kenn Kaufman

Today's Starting Pitcher: Rolando Arrojo

New weed for the day: butter and eggs.

But I'm a Cheerleader is very funny. Both of us enjoyed it.

There was a pile of dead fish at the cove this afternoon. It looked like someone had dumped them from a bucket as opposed to their having washed ashore. They were all the same size and in the same condition. A muskrat ran out of the brush and grabbed a dead fish. A woman started screaming when she saw the muskrat. Total freak out. Nancy used her best social worker tone of voice to calm her down. Personally I don't find muskrats particularly frightening - now a rat on the other hand... well, anyway this was a muskrat and it vanished back into the underbrush with its dead fish prize pretty quickly. The woman's male companion started to go after it. I explained to him that probably was not a good idea.

Nancy asked a god question. How come the herring gulls are not eating these fish? How come the crows are not eating these fish? In fact, nothing but that muskrat showed any interest in the fish at all. What's up with that? And where did they come from? Inquiring minds want to know.