Note the beach ball in the water and the tiki lamp on the dock. The beach ball is tethered to a rock on a long nylon cord and floats and dances around the pond in the wind and is intended to keep the geese away. The experts gave it a low level of success prognosis. It seems to have worked in our case. The tiki lamp is to keep the mosquitos away when we are over there in the evenings. I have been leaving it there for the summer, planning on taking it down sometime this fall.
Saturday afternoon I went over to the pond to, well, cool off. As I climbed the pond dike on the fourwheeler and the tiki lamp came in to view, I noticed that a large bird was perched atop. I hesitated, thinking about stopping to take a picture, and I quickly recognized it as a beautiful belted kingfisher. In that second, my eyes narrowed, as I focused on the size of that huge beak; the beak seemingly growing in size with every instant that passed. Forget the picture. Save the fish! I gunned the fourwheeler over the top of the dike and scared that vicious monster away before he could murder any more of our fish. After a couple of laps around the pond, he left the valley. I got the impression he was looking over his shoulder the whole way. I took the tiki lamp down.
2 comments:
How likely is it that he'd eat all your fish?
Not likely that he would eat ALL the fish. The recommended stocking rate was 60, which is what we put in. They were only a couple inches long. They are only about 3-4 inches now. I saw a school of about 30 several weeks ago. Is that all that's left? Losses from normal mortality, great blue herrons (no pictures but plenty of tracks), and king fishers can add up. Once I get some to adult breeding size, I won't fret quite as much.
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