Count me in: Blue Heron fan!

I have told you previously how I felt about cormorants.

I think they are destructive, useless creatures. And to make it worse, the government protects them with the same type laws that they protect majestc birds like bald eagles. It isn’t right. It’s like protecting fire ants. It’s probably illegal to talk bad about the nasty things. If it is, come get me.

Well, they are still here on Lake D’Arbonne (and just about every other big body of water) in overabundance. Friday afternoon a flight of several hundred kept circling the lake trying to find a place to land where a boat wasn’t running. Thank goodness they couldn’t rest for long.  Some of them have split off like rogue Orks and are roaming the lake in, as Si would say, pairs of one or two.

There is justice in the world, though.

I was watching one diving and swimming not far from the boat dock when he came up with a four of five inch white perch in his beak (the protectors and defenders of cormor-ORKS will staunchly tell you scientifically that they only eat small shad and minnows – HA!). I debated about trying to get close enough to throw something at him, but I just watched. He tossed the fish up in the air with his beak and tried to swallow it, but it was a bit too big. It fell back in the water, but he dove and caught the wounded fish again. This happened about three or four times when a big blue heron flew over and perched on one of the channel markers. After one more drop, the heron got involved, dove down and took the perch away from the despicable Ork-orant.  I loved it.  Sadly, the white perch still got eaten (and not by me), but seeing the cormorant swim around in circles trying to figure out what happened, then fly off aimlessly to the north just made my day.