Animal Anecdote 37

Animal Anecdote 37

An important activity in and around our house was to keep our bird feeders supplied. Fat and seed and fruit brought a myriad of common birds and not infrequently less common ones. We had a third of an acre pond next to our house my bride, Dorothy named Lake George because I logged t he swamp and brought in a huge bulldozer to dig the pond 12 feet deep.

Over the years we had rainbow trout and small mouth bass at another time. I wondered about catfish and a fisherman friend brought 5 river catfish he caught in the Connecticut River that I wondered about until one day in a tulip poplar tree across Lake George was an Osprey working at eating a large fish. My field glasses helped me identify a large catfish. Its hide was so tough the bird took over an hour working at tearing the tough hide of the fish and while working at it for over the hour put on a rare demonstration of dedication to eating.

Another observation of a happening on Lake George was in one early winter when the pond had frozen enough for my walking on it. I chopped a hole so the water loving birds might utilize it. One of the foods we offered the birds and a squirrel or two were old stale pastries. The donuts would be broken in four pieces. Dorothy called my attention to the birds picking up a piece of stale donut and taking it to the water hole and dunking it and flying off to feed.

I didn’t know that some birds are donut dunkers. 269 words

Next time, how many raccoons might we have at our feeders?