Today there were two killers on the ranch. Shocking but true. I first realized it when I heard the labored breathing of one of my two ranch dogs, Rosie, as she approached the house from wherever she had been and hurried out to the porch to make sure she was OK. Any exercise these days stresses her breathing, and everything a veterinarian can do for her has already been done so we just live with it. Doesn’t mean I’m complacent about it, though.
Anyway when I stepped out the door I wasn’t prepared for two great blue herons to fly up from somewhere between the house and the barn. Huge, magnificent birds that I’d rather see anywhere besides near my horse trough and its goldfish residents.
In the past when herons have stopped by to refresh themselves at the Strand Sushi Bar Ranch, I have found fish parts floating on the water’s surface and never any survivors. At some point over the years, I stopped buying replacement 25¢ goldfish at WalMart (the price has no doubt gone up since the last time) and instead bought a bunch of cement blocks and dropped them in the water trough. I figured the blocks’ convenient hidey-holes would provide more protection from herons than the rocks that were there to provide an escape route for small critters that fell into the water.
So when I went out to check, I was hopeful but not 100% that there would be fish left. While I found no scales, fins, or other fish parts on the surface, I only saw one very spooky fish. And a few feathers. The herons had been there, all right. I hoped that that at least a couple more fish were down there deeper in the green water.
I went back into the house, where Rosie and my other ranch dog, Bubz, were snoring away, totally unconcerned about fish killers. Thing was, I couldn’t trust those herons to stay away and I didn’t want to have to come out to scare them off every half hour until they decided to move on. But maybe they had moved on? I went back out to check. Nope. They saw me coming, took off again, and then had the nerve to circle right over my head, swquaking their unlovely protests, with one even stopping briefly on top of the barn.
Go away!
That was them yelling at me. I knew there was no point in me yelling at them. It had never worked before.
5 1/2 to 6 1/2 ft. wingspans! HUGE!!
The two flew only flew a couple hundred feet away, to the top of a short juniper/cedar tree, where they stared at me, waiting for me to leave. Leave I did, but only for a few minutes. I decided to put some bright orange snow fencing over the trough. It’s ugly but hopefully it would deter the fish thieves.
When I was done, they were still sitting and watching, so I took photos as I slowly approached their tree. I got maybe 50 feet away before they decided to leave. Not that they went far. They flew up the valley to my neighbor rancher’s cow tank, circled once, and settled down to wait me out. They wouldn’t stay there long, because they ate all the fish I had stocked there long ago, plus all the tadpoles and frogs in the overflow. Problem is, they’re patient, perseverant hunters, with long memories. The herons come back to my ranch every year, and every year I fret about my goldfish. Would they come back in spite of the snow fence, which they had obviously watched me wrestling with?
So far so good. Yes, I am checking often.
And yes, I know herons gotta eat, but goldfish in a horse trough are not a sustainable resource. I am fond of my fish. Heck, the home screen on my phone is a photo of one of them. That’s why I gotta buy some more cement blocks next time I’m in town, cause that snow fencing is ugly and my fish might not like having to look at it.
PS – now I have another problem. A raven is sitting on the fence studying the snow fencing. How could I have forgotten that ravens watered at the horse trough? Gotta get me some cement blocks, STAT!
