More Goings On At My Sit Area

I went to the park again this morning. I was shocked to see that the water level had lowered by 5 or more inches. This is just in a 24 hour period or less. There were three catfish that were trapped in the stream in front of my sit spot. They were all less than a pound in size. Maybe 6-7 inches long. They kept swimming into shallow areas flopping around trying to find a way back to the river.

About a half an hour in the family of ducks made their way in from the river. For some reason the father has been missing since shortly after the mysterious bird of prey sighting yesterday. I was curious to see what would happen as the ducks entered the water where the fish were freaking out. Unfortunately the mother led the little ducklings around the stream at that point. They did enter back in directly in front of me. Now that the stream had lowered, they had to get closer to me to be in the water. I wish I had my camera to take some pictures. I'll probably bring it next time. It was interesting watching the ducks. The fish made a pretty loud splashing sound and all 7 ducks froze in place for a second to figure out what was going on. They then went back to feeding. It was cool to watch the ducklings walk through the leaf debris and see them almost disappear as their dappled brown color blended in so well.

As I considered the fish, I wondered just how bad off they had it. I walked toward the river. It was easy to follow the dried up river beds because they were smooth and there was dried up green algae marking the path. It became clear that these fish were basically stranded 30 yards from the river. There was hardly any water between them and the river and nothing deep enough for them to live in. I wondered if I should try to move them, but I didn't get the feeling that I should. Maybe it will rain in time for them to escape. If not, I know there is a raccoon that walks by there frequently that will take care of them.