In alt.home.repair, on Sun, 04 Dec 2016 14:17:34 -0600, "cowabunga dude"
wrote:



wrote:
"cowabunga dude" wrote in message
...

When I went out to get the mail a sandhill crane flew away from on top of
the storage building, overlooking the stock tank.

They've been around before and never been a problem. I like seeing them
around when they drink from the stock tank.

When I poured in some fish food I watched for the fish to swarm around and
eat, there wasn't any fish. There had been four large eight inch, two
large four inch, and the rest were around three inches, but skinny. There
were seventeen, now there are none.

I poked around with a stick, and still no fish.
Never before have fish been missing after I've seen sandhill cranes.

As you might be able to tell, I'm disappointed.
We always have a pair of sandhills living on/near our 10 acre property.
They often nest in our about two acre pond but I've never seen them forage
in/near it. They do eat critters, I've seen them dig out moles.
A neighbor built an ornamental pond, stocked it with koi. The koi started
disappearing, turned out to be a snake that was living in the rock work
around the pond. You have snakes? Raccoons?

It's a little cold for snakes to be out, and I don't think the snakes we have would swim unless their lives depended on it.

I've only seen one raccoon my entire life around here, and that was probably 20 years ago. The stock tank is 18 inches deep so I'm not sure a raccoon would be in water that deep.

Outside of zoos, and maybe on the road, I've only seen one raccoon. He
was in my big plastic garbage can. Probably more than 18" in but of
course it was loose stuff, not water. I got a camera and took a
picture, and I thought the flash would scare him away, but he didn't
budge.

OTOH, I don't think he came back, or maybe I put the lids on better
afterwards.

There was a rat** in the front yard once, too, about 25 years ago. I
threw something at him and I thought even though I missed that would
scare him, but he didn't leave until later.

Someone should explain to these animals that humans are in charge.