Right time, right place
Right time, Right place
I was taking a few more photos of the lock here at WP Franklin Campground on the Caloosahatchee River east of Fort Myers. I was catching up on the news with a fellow camper when I notice that one of the local people fishing on the bank had caught something big. Instead of the mullet fish she was hoping for, a comorant had gotten tangled on her line underwater. She pulled it toward shore but it was full of fight and was trying to fly back out into the river. She got it to the shoreline, but that was a far as she could manage.
She was alone at the time so I ran over to help her. The bird struck out with it’s big beak whenever I reached toward it. I asked for a blanket or a towel which she had in her pack. It was still tricky trying to throw the towel over its head, but we succeeded after a few tries. She also brought over a long set of pliers normally used to retrieve swallowed hooks out of a fish.
The fishline had several hooks, both single and triple, so the act of handling the line, keeping it taut while removing those hooks piercing the web of the foot and wing, all the while trying not to get impaled myself made for quite a juggling act. Then the comorant would flap and struggle to get out of the towel undoing our previous work.
The hardest hook to get out was the one through the foot web. The other hook was jabbed into the wings leading edge, but that didn’t seem to be in as far as the barb. Then we had to unwind the line from around the wing and body. The final reward was seeing the comorant taking off to freedom.
I had left my camera on the bank when this whole action started, but my sister Sharon Merrow had her own digital with her and recorded the whole sequence. It makes for a very good slide show that I’m including with the rest of the photo documentation I’m doing for the US Army Corps of Engineers.
I was taking a few more photos of the lock here at WP Franklin Campground on the Caloosahatchee River east of Fort Myers. I was catching up on the news with a fellow camper when I notice that one of the local people fishing on the bank had caught something big. Instead of the mullet fish she was hoping for, a comorant had gotten tangled on her line underwater. She pulled it toward shore but it was full of fight and was trying to fly back out into the river. She got it to the shoreline, but that was a far as she could manage.
She was alone at the time so I ran over to help her. The bird struck out with it’s big beak whenever I reached toward it. I asked for a blanket or a towel which she had in her pack. It was still tricky trying to throw the towel over its head, but we succeeded after a few tries. She also brought over a long set of pliers normally used to retrieve swallowed hooks out of a fish.
The fishline had several hooks, both single and triple, so the act of handling the line, keeping it taut while removing those hooks piercing the web of the foot and wing, all the while trying not to get impaled myself made for quite a juggling act. Then the comorant would flap and struggle to get out of the towel undoing our previous work.
The hardest hook to get out was the one through the foot web. The other hook was jabbed into the wings leading edge, but that didn’t seem to be in as far as the barb. Then we had to unwind the line from around the wing and body. The final reward was seeing the comorant taking off to freedom.
I had left my camera on the bank when this whole action started, but my sister Sharon Merrow had her own digital with her and recorded the whole sequence. It makes for a very good slide show that I’m including with the rest of the photo documentation I’m doing for the US Army Corps of Engineers.