Saw A Varmit

Ginny and I wasted Saturday running around doing necessary household chores such as grocery shopping.

We enjoyed a late lunch on the deck of Harpoon Louie’s overlooking Fishwier Creek. We saw three different species of heron hunting within a few feet of each other; a great blue, a white and a tri-color. The white and the blue are static hunters while the tri-color is an active hunter so it was interesting to watch their different methods of stalking prey, each effective in its way.

We spotted an animal swimming briskly under the bridge and watched it climb out of the water onto the far bank. It was a nutria, a large invasive rodent from South America. It’s similar to a 30-pound beaver only it has a rat tail instead of a flatten one. I have never seen one in the wild before. I’d heard they have reached Florida by way of Louisiana and they present a problem in th at they undermine rivebanks and destroy marshland. Some states, such as Maryland, actually have programs to eradicate them. Not a bad idea because essentially they are nothing but big ass rats.

Nevertheless, it was interesting to see one.

There used to be a good sized alligator that lived in the mouth of the creek just off Louie’s deck but somebody decided it was a nuisance gator because customers in waterfront restaurants wound toss it tidbits. So Fish & Game officers trapped it and (killed?) removed it. The nutria has no natural enemies in North America so it breeds unobstructed; but if they’d left the gator alone, I imagine he would have thinned the colony of them in no time — unless the varmint really did prefer luscious Avondale children from Fishwier Elementary School just across the bridge.

I think it would be cool to watch a gator feed as I enjoyed my own dinner. Besides, who’d really miss those skateboarders who make such a ruckus on the concrete bridge footings right beside the restaurant?