Lakeside Living 1: the heron & catfish vignette ~ by Ruth Ross Saucier

     I lived on a small lake for nearly 20 years. Only trolling motors were allowed, and those were used rarely--so the lake was a refuge for an amazing cross-section of nature. Birds, fish, mammals, rodents all flocked to it and lived around it for the water and the food. If you parked yourself in front of the view and held still, you never knew what you’d see, because the show was always on.

     I was staring at the lake from the deck one day when a heron came into view. He was stalking something painfully slowly, his skinny legs not even leaving a ripple in the water. He lifted one leg and then froze for the longest time, slowly cocking his head slightly to peer into the water. He waited and I waited with him, barely remembering to breathe. In a split second he slashed through the water and his head reared back with a big, fat catfish flopping madly.

     The struggle continued for a while and the heron

finally lost patience and threw the catfish up onto my lawn. The heron followed the catfish onto the lawn to inspect his catch. There the catfish continued thrashing, so the heron stabbed him, once, twice, and scooped him off the lawn and juggled the persistent fish in his beak.

When the catfish refused to submit, the heron hurled the fish to the ground twice more and stabbed him again and again. I was wincing from the violence of this National Geographic struggle, but I could not tear my eyes away. Finally the catfish was barely fighting. Satisfied, the heron scooped him up and juggled the fish in his sword-beak until the catfish was facing down the heron’s gullet, all whiskers swept back.

     Stretching out his neck, the heron began gulping the fish down until every last bit disappeared. But no; the catfish became a sizeable, writhing lump that squirmed down the heron’s neck until it vanished.  Undeterred and relentless, the heron slowly resumed his hunt.