Mr. Eagle - deep in the wood and not visible from up the creek at the road edge
In my haste to get a shot of our national bird I stepped over the guard-railing and almost onto one of the largest snakes I have caught a glimpse of in decades - it immediately disappeared into the grass and brush but remained about three feet from my feet giving an ominous rattling sound with the covering grasses quavering away - I got a slight photograph of it but found it hard to identify until it went slithering away when I prodded it with a stick - it was a dun gray and about six feet long, and maybe four inches in diameter - either a common black snake or a water moccasin - but I will never know for sure - and even though I have no snake phobias to speak of, I definitely was a little leery of continuing on to the creek in the grass. However I plodded on, thrusting a long stick ahead of me into the grass to startle any more Serpentes and arrived at the creeks edge only slightly ill at ease.
Fish Kill and Weed Killer - Coincidence? [note: update]
I will follow with a series of photographs and comments about my little jaunt to photograph the Eagle at Stony Run and how the dead fish and the road-side weed control seemed to be bound togeth er.
This is a considered update, after supper and thinking that my posting was sounding a bit 'memesh' as it stood. I do know that weed killer run-off is usually deleterious to fish, but had no idea if the dead fish were like salmon which usually die after spawning. I did not think that shad and herring and similar fish did die and a quick check on the internet confirmed that in normal circumstances they do journey back to the ocean sometime after spawning. So I feel that I can let the posting stand as it is, i.e. a good query to think about. I was too late in the day to contact environmental resources to see if they could look into the matter but will do so tomorrow if all goes well. So stay tuned to some more photos and my grumblings about habitat destruction and the state of mind of the average American garbage thrower across the highways and onto the verge.
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