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<\/p>\nI live near a local fishing pond that attracts a few fish-eating birds, particularly in the late winter and\u00a0early spring.\u00a0 For the last few days there’s been a pair of Common Mergansers on the pond and yesterday morning I was finally able to get relatively close to them for a few minutes.\u00a0 The pond was still about half covered with ice but it’s melting fast.<\/p>\n
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\u00a01\/2500, f\/7.1, ISO 500, 500 f\/4, 1.4 tc, natural light<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n Most of the time there wasn’t much action with the\u00a0cormorants but once, when this bird apparently\u00a0thought its companion might have caught a fish, it rushed over to investigate.\u00a0 It wasn’t until this morning when I began culling and\u00a0processing the images that I noticed that it was missing its\u00a0left foot.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n \u00a01\/2500, f\/7.1, ISO 500, 500 f\/4, 1.4 tc, natural light<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n \u00a0Since they use their webbed\u00a0feet to help\u00a0propel them\u00a0along the surface of the water this\u00a0bird could really scoot for having only one foot.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n \u00a01\/2500, f\/7.1, ISO 500, 500 f\/4, 1.4 tc, natural light<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n \u00a0This image shows the missing foot best.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n \u00a01\/2000, f\/7.1, ISO 500, 500 f\/4, 1.4 tc, natural light<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n This shot, and the next two, are of the other merganser.\u00a0 As you can see it had some kind of fishing lure\/hook stuck in its lower mandible.\u00a0 It doesn’t look like a typical lure so perhaps it’s what’s left of a fish that it had tried to swallow when the hook and\/or line got stuck in its bill.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n \u00a01\/2000, f\/7.1, ISO 500, 500 f\/4, 1.4 tc, natural light<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n \u00a0I was at the pond for perhaps an hour and\u00a0the merganser had the “object” in its bill the entire time.\u00a0 It would occasionally attempt to dislodge whatever it was, as it’s doing here, but without success.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n \u00a01\/2000, f\/7.1, ISO 500, 500 f\/4, 1.4 tc, natural light<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n Something else I didn’t notice until this morning was what looks like fishing leader\/line coming off the “elbow” of the\u00a0right wing.\u00a0 The one-footed\u00a0merganser seems to have adapted to its handicap (which I suspect may also have originally been caused by fishing line)\u00a0but this bird is likely doomed to starvation.<\/p>\n The fishing line mess at this pond is atrocious.\u00a0\u00a0There was discarded line littering the shore and\u00a0the fishing dock was covered with it, frozen into the morning frost on the floor and elsewhere – despite the fact that\u00a0there were several receptacles on the dock for disposing of fishing line.\u00a0 I saw another\u00a0domestic duck that morning with line wrapped around its body.\u00a0 I live about a half mile from the pond but twice in the past there\u00a0have been Mallards wandering around my front yard with fishing line entangled in their wings and feet.\u00a0 One of them couldn’t fly and I spent hours trying to\u00a0rescue it and remove the line (thankfully,\u00a0I was eventually successful).<\/p>\n I know it’s an old story but in my opinion fishermen as a group\u00a0need to clean up their act.\u00a0 I understand that snagged line often cannot be retrieved but as much of it as there is along the shore and on the dock\u00a0I can only imagine how much there is at the bottom of the pond\u00a0waiting to ensnare and entangle multiple species of hapless diving birds.<\/p>\n I wonder if Murray City Parks\u00a0ever makes an effort to snag the bottom of the pond for fishing line.\u00a0 The pond is shallow and small\u00a0and it seems to this observer that such an operation would be relatively cheap and easy.<\/p>\n And very much worth the effort!<\/p>\n Ron<\/p>\n Note:\u00a0 A few minutes after making this post I noticed that even the first merganser may have have fishing line entangled on its right foot.\u00a0 Look carefully at the\u00a0third image down from the top.\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" I live near a local fishing pond that attracts a few fish-eating birds, particularly in the late winter and\u00a0early spring.\u00a0 For the last few days there’s been a pair of Common Mergansers on the pond and yesterday morning I was finally able to get relatively close to them for a few minutes.\u00a0 The pond was still about half covered with ice but it’s melting fast. \u00a01\/2500, f\/7.1, ISO 500, 500 f\/4, 1.4 tc, natural light Most of the time there wasn’t much action with the\u00a0cormorants but once, when this bird apparently\u00a0thought its companion might have caught a fish, it rushed over to investigate.\u00a0 It wasn’t until this morning when I began culling and\u00a0processing the images that I noticed that it was missing its\u00a0left foot. \u00a01\/2500, f\/7.1, ISO 500, 500 f\/4, 1.4 tc, natural light \u00a0Since they use their webbed\u00a0feet to help\u00a0propel them\u00a0along the surface of the water this\u00a0bird could really scoot for having only one foot. \u00a01\/2500, f\/7.1, ISO 500, 500 f\/4, 1.4 tc, natural light \u00a0This image shows the missing foot best. \u00a01\/2000, f\/7.1, ISO 500, 500 f\/4, 1.4 tc, natural light This shot, and the next two, are of the other merganser.\u00a0 As you can see it had some kind of fishing lure\/hook stuck in its lower mandible.\u00a0 It doesn’t look like a typical lure so perhaps it’s what’s left of a fish that it had tried to swallow when the hook and\/or line got stuck in its bill. \u00a01\/2000, f\/7.1, ISO 500, 500…<\/p>\n![\"common](\"http:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/02\/common-merganser-7220-ron-dudley.jpg\")
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