My friend Janette called me one day all excited about an animal adventure she’d just had. After I told her a heron ate all my fish, she had installed a net over her outdoor pond to keep her fish safe. But she’d just learned that herons are creatively determined birds.
Janette was breathless on the phone. And excited. An hour earlier, she’d heard some scuffling on her back deck and looked out to see that a heron had sneaked under the net and was fishing in her pond. Out she dashed to capture that bird. She was going to jump in the pond and grab him, but he lifted up the net and scuttled out the other side. She ran after him and cornered him by the chicken coop.
“I’ve got you,” she shouted and grabbed that bird. The heron pecked at her face and she quickly grabbed his long neck and tucked his head under her arm. Victory! She carried the wiggly bird into the house to wrap him in a blanket. She wanted to keep him still so she could drive to the wildlife refuge and let him go free where fishing is allowed.
She had a pillowcase over the heron and was searching for a blanket to secure around him when his shoulders shuddered and SPLAT!—he upchucked an 8-inch goldfish onto her kitchen floor.
“Grab that fish and throw it back in the pond,” Janette commanded her visiting sister-in-law.
And that’s how Lucky the Goldfish got his name. He survived his encounter with the heron and continues to swim in Janette’s pond almost two years later.
And here’s a picture of Janette as she prepares to release her determined heron at the wildlife refuge. It’s a good thing for Lucky that my friend Janette is pretty determined, too.
Carol Harker