Something new from town

[flatlander]

We were surprised yesterday with the presence of a juvenile (about 4' tall) great blue heron in our backyard. There are some ponds and a small stream a few blocks away, but we are definitely in town. He stuck around for an hour or so, so I decided that it needed some encouragement to head down toward where the nearest pond was. It wasn't terribly afraid of me, and I got to within around 5 feet or so before it finally trotted into the neighbors yard and stopped. Odd behavior, and we had noticed a clump of weeds hanging from its lower bill, so I made some calls to anyone I knew that might be interested in helping this guy out. Pretty much everyone from animal control, the humane society and anyone else that seemed even closely related had the same predicable response: Not our job--try someone else. One guy did encourage us to take care of it ourselves. He said that if we could get it's head covered with a blanket, it would stop trying to spear us and just give up. I decided to do it with the neighbor's help. I got an old blanket from the house and we worked on cornering the bird. It proved very easy, since after running about 25 yards, it flopped on the ground with its wings outstretched and just laid there. I threw the blanket over the top and he quit struggling entirely. We discovered that the clump of weeds on his lower bill was actually a wad of fishing line. It was stuck pretty tight, so we had to cut it off using some scissors. It was a perfect time to give a lesson to all of the kids gathered around about being sure to pick up all of your old fishing line and the damage it can cause when you don't. Then we carefully carried him to the neighbor's van (for a huge bird, he weighed less than the blanket holding him) and drove it down to the pond followed by a whole troop of the kids from the area, where we turned him loose. He was a bit disoriented, so we stayed to watch him for a while. It took less than 5 minutes for him to get his sights on a frog and eat him, so we left feeling pretty optimistic about his survival chances. It was a pretty cool experience, so I just wanted to share it with you all and have a chance to relive it just a little bit myself. Not hunting for fishing, but rewarding all the same.

[Jack Crevalle]

Great job!

My wife and I walked around a pond we used to live close to and we would always find tons of loose fishing line and cut it up. The pond was home to beavers, ducks, geese, ospreys and we'd even see an occassional bald eagle. We came across a duck one time that had about a 30 foot piece wrapped around it's foot to the point that it was almost amputated. We couldn't catch him to remove it however because it could still fly.

It you guys find loose line, wrap it in loops around the fingers of a cupped hand and then cut all the loops at once. This makes it into short pieces. Do this even if it's going into the trash.

[New Hampshire]

I used to burn mine up just to make absolute sure.  Then I found out I could throw it in the recycling bin.....never occured to me that it was a damn form of plastic  :? .   There sure are some scummy people out there.  Not just fishing line.  We have a weed collection bin at the pond I call home every Saturday night.  Some jackasses always mistake it for a garbage bin (this is a take-in take-out facility.)  Sure enough, some idiots last night decided that instead of stuffing their trash IN the bin they just left it ON the bin!  What kind of slobs would do this  :x .  Oh well, its no wonder private land gets shut off from the public so quickly.
Brian M.

[Carl l.]

Great Job, and it gave the kids a lesson also. Carl L.[/b]