A day of mourning

Driving home from a work event yesterday, I received a sad phone call from my husband. He mentioned, the crazy lady from down the street stopped by, and told him "you had a heron on top of your house yesterday." Upon hearing this comment and piece of knowledge, he said his blood pressure dropped. Dropped with a silent thud. "Don't you have a pond or something in your yard with fish?" The worst connection made possible for him. yes, the pond, with beautiful goldfish. Not the standard goldfish found in pet stores, but beautiful ranchues,butterfly tails..fancy goldfish. 

This was a sad moment, 50 fish gone. Poof! Eaten all by one, lone heron; a very, happy heron after it's visit to our yard. Immediately following this brief conversation, D mentioned he now knew why when he & J looked at the fish the night before, why none of the fish came up for food. This was sad, very, very sad. Saturday was a day of mourning, sadness, and even I felt it. D's been working with these fish for a year plus. I even admit the fish have personalities, beauty, and did capture a part of my heart. We knew herons' are problems for ponds and fish, D's been working with fish for at least 15 years...we should have known. If it can happen in NYC rooftop ponds, it can happen here in Eugene. 

Crap, there is a connection. NYC & Eugene share the statistic for bicycles stolen per capita, now we can share the heron statistic with eating fish. And in a sense we thought the raccoons were our biggest issue, and they've coooled their heels with our yard. Work began yesterday on building a net for the top....and in a few weeks he was heading to washington to pick up more fish. Timing is everything I suppose.