Life On the Lake 

Dedicated to the Joys of Waterside Living

445

Trumpeter and tundra swans in a field near La Conner yesterday.
(Lock and load!)

"THE wanton troopers riding by
Have shot my fawn, and it will die. "

This is from the start of a famous poem by Andrew Marvell (early Seventeenth Century, English, and is written in rhymed tetrameter, I believe, It has long stuck in my mind, and comes back, apropos the gunshot heron from a few days ago (see below), the plight of which continues pain and perplex me.

Will it die? Why did someone shoot it? Because it presented a large, immobile target? Is that cause enough?

Boys and guns! And the glorification of shooting something, or someone. It is in the news every night, on many network programs, and in video games. Why are we so violent? Is it a key part of human nature, or is it something our society induces? And . . . what for? For what purpose?

Fifty years ago I spent three years in the army. I saw a lot of guns and the firing of them. (We had to call them "pieces.")   I am now pretty deaf, as a consequence. I had enough of guns, enough for a lifetime, in those long-ago years.

What is the fascination with shooting something and knowing it will die? Women don't seem to have this need. Is it only men? Then something is wrong with us guys. Is it inherent, or is it culturally induced? And why does it seem to me strongest in those "skip" generations that come of age without any war to go off to? They seem to always fly the flag and easily find some people or nation or religion to hate.

I have no answers today, only more questions. Sorry.

445

I was testing my new camera's telephoto properties, and blowing up today's heron picture, when I noticed a large spot of red on the bird's shoulder. A wound--a gunshot wound? There are fishers and others who begrudge a heron, a cormorant, a merganser, an otter, a meal of fish. Why?

They want all the fish for themselves, selfish bastards. But then there are others, gun-crazy males, who just like to shoot things. A heron is a huge target. Hard to miss. And boys are raised hereabouts to think of themselves as junior Hemingways and great white hunters. There must be big thrill in pulling the trigger and seeing the bullet striking home.

I shall never fire a gun again in my life, most likely. (I had to, in the army, and hated it.) Guns are for soldiers and for cowards. They have only one use--to kill or to maim. Our heron is clearly maimed. He/she may not survive. And the person who did this dastardly deed will not be identified or found.

Too bad. I can think of several suitable punishments. But none will be worse than such a person growing up, or going out to take his rightful place in society. It should not be too long before others know him (for it surely cannot be a "she") for what he is.

For it will show, when you look him in the eyes. And then it will show again around the mouth and lips.

444

Can you read this? Good. It is an unretouched print from my new Panasonic camera, with a Leica lens shot in macro mode and hand focused, while on my morning walk with  my two black Labs

Below is another woodland shot from this morning:

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Yes, it has been retouched--with the MS PhotoDraw editing program to make it look more like a watercolor. I like this kind of stuff, and hope you do, too.

Oh, yes. A trout, too, on the 3rd of January. The water temperature had warmed to 43 degrees F. And, sad to relate, the trout struggled not one bit, not until I released it, and it swam angrily away.

The word "angrily" is an example of the foolish use of the pathetic fallacy in writing. Who says the trout is "angry?"  Only the trout can say this.

"Quickly" would have been the better word.

Cormorant, sitting

443

A New Year! A Happy One to You!

Yesterday, the first of January, 2006, the local Audubon Society did its annual bird count. We missed it. Busy, busy, busy. Is today too late? Hope not. And, as usual, we will perform our usual slatternly ritual.

About a hundred common mergansers are on the lake, mostly  adult males, with a few one-year old guys mixed in and about a quarter of the rest females. The yearling males still look very much like females, and it takes a keen, trained eye to sort them out. My eye is not that good, I'm afraid, and I make mistakes.

Mistakes in birding are frequent, and we don't go broadcasting them, far and wide. We keep them to ourselves and hope they are not noticed. Among the mergansers are double-tufted cormorants, and they have quite a different look, swimming with their snoots up in the air; when they take to the air, they are inclined not to rise very high and to beat their wings hard, but once in flight they are veritable feathery arrows and pierce the sky. They can be easily identified by their very long necks and dark, almost black, coloration.

The cormorants dive with the dominant species, the merganser, and  help form the net or seine that trawls the bottom and nails any escaping spinyray or, as bad luck will have it, yearling rainbow trout.

"Oh, look," Norma calls out to me. "He's got a big one." And indeed the merganser does. He spends a long, long time turning it around and around, until he has it just right, exactly the same way a heron does, or I suppose all of the fish-eating ducks, for it is important (a matter of life or death, truly) for the duck, and if he doesn't swallow the spiny-backed fish exactly right, it will catch in his throat and kill him.

The death will not be a happy one; few deaths in the wild are. The duck will not be able to drink water or to swallow food, and will strangle or starve to death in a day or two. Ugh. So mergansers and cormorants are very careful to turn and turn again  their fish so it slides down their throats exactly so, for any other way will be a critical mistake.

It is ancestral memory that warns them of this danger, I guess, for the practice of  "adaptive management," a current bureaucratic catch word, is not recommended, in this instance, nor in many others, I think.

Thanks for the visit,
Robert C. Arnold, Editor