Hissing menace gets cornered

Dear Editor:

Frantically the American Coot flapped her wings, and propelled herself across the pond to get away from a muskrat in hot pursuit. She sprayed water up in his face as she ran along the top of the murky, smelly, green liquid surface. Waves of stagnant water obscured the wanna-be predator’s vision, and left the critter spluttering in frustration, while the bird squawked in indignation, making her getaway.

I wondered if the rodent was hoping that mud hen tartare was on the menu, or if he was just messing with her. Nothing like terrorizing a stupid bird, perhaps he thought, or maybe it was merely a friendly game of cat and mouse, albeit rat and bird. Normally, escargot (snails), frogs (not just the legs), and bugs, are the muskrat’s source of protein, anyhow, and easier game for the rodent than water fowl.

In any event, the Coot flew a short distance and settled down again, while the muskrat moseyed along, paddling nonchalantly, in the centre of the pool. You win some you lose some; he shrugged it off and snagged a tasty plant root instead, then hid in the thicket of the bush along the water’s edge and daintily devoured his food through his nimble digits, happily munching away with sharp buck teeth.

Watching the rodent eat reminded me of another time when I found a muskrat trapped in a window well, which it had fallen into accidentally, then scratched on the church’s basement window to get our attention. I remarked how the church mouse wasn’t so quiet after all, then was astonished to find a muskrat staring back at me through the glass, with a toothy grin on its face.

One of the guys named Jon grabbed an empty ice cream bucket and a roll of paper towel and off our group went, to rescue it. I meanwhile grabbed the camera from the car.

Jon chased it round and round the window well until he finally cornered the hissing, two pound menace and air lifted it to safety. In the excitement, the rodent dove out of the bucket and ran towards me, and I screamed like a little girl, begging Jon to save me from it, but was relieved to see the creature scurry off into the dark. Turns out, I was in a flap over nothing.

Doreen Zyderveld-Hagel, Kelowna