The Anhinga

The Anhinga is a diving bird similar to a Cormorant. 

I was training my labs one day in a borrow pit from a side street in Winter Springs, where I live.  A borrow pit is one of those ponds, this one is square, where they "borrowed" dirt for the surrounding roads so they would be a little higher than adjacent land and therefore would not flood.  This particular pond has nice clear water and most important is Alligator free. 

The pond is about 75 yards across and long and my dogs will do multiple retrieves all the way across and up on the opposite bank.  In order to do this I have remote launchers that shoot dummies 10 yards or so and they are activated by radio signal.  The only problem is I have to walk around the pond each time and reload them. 

On one of my several treks around the pond I noticed this Anhinga sitting on a culvert with a ball of what looked like fishing line about midway down its beak.  I remember thinking "poor bird, if left like that it's going to die because it can't open its bill to eat."  I remember thinking what a bad way  to die, to starve to death.  Next trip out I again started thinking about this poor bird.  So I did what any of us would have done I prayed.  "Lord, you need to help this bird.  After all it's your creation, you are responsible."  I remembered that scripture about God providing food for the raven.  I finished training and went home.

Next day I returned to swim a recuperating dog.  I had forgotten about the bird and this time because it was just getting exercise wasn't using the whole pond.  I stayed a few minutes and got ready to leave.  I was in my car driving away and thought of the bird.  "I wonder if the bird is still there?"  I prayed again, "Lord did you take care of your bird?"  I started to turn to go home and I felt impressed to go see about the bird.  Not to go see the bird but it was this flash impression, "Greg, go take care of the bird."  I almost turned to the right, to go home but it was a fairly profound impression so I turned left towards the bird.  The other side of the pond, where the culvert was there is a nursing home and parking lot so I pulled in. 

I saw the bird, he was exactly where he was the day before and his head was tucked under his wing in their typical sleep mode.  I thought OK here's what I'm going to do.  I'm going to walk right over to him as quietly as I can.  I started.  Thinking "he's going to wake up any second and flop into the water and be gone.  He'd sense the vibrations from my walking.  You can't just walk up on one of these things."  I started to get close and I panicked.  "These things have a needle sharp beak that they skewer their prey minnows with."  "What if when I grab him he skewers me?"  And I remembered that the Lord didn't bring me this far to leave me and He hadn't given me the spirit of fear.  I purposed to just keep going and in one motion walked right to the bird swooped down and picked him up.  He never moved a muscle.  Now that I had him what was I to do.  Kind of hard to hang on and undo what turned out to be mop string.  His beak was amazingly made with serrated tiny teeth angled back to securely hold his minnows now also securely held the mop string.  This bird was in a hum.  As a matter of fact hat's all he could do was hum because his mouth was securely bound shut by the mop tangle.  I couldn't get it off.  What to do.  Tammy, my wife's best friend is a vet tech who lives only a few blocks away.  So while cradling this bird in my arms got Emma, my convalescing lab out of her crate and put her in with the other lab in the other crate.  And I put the bird in Emma's crate.  I wish I had a picture of that.  Two labs inches away from this bird who proved to be a calm and placid traveler.  They never took their eyes off the bird but they were very good, now growling or noise of any kind.  Tammy was home and with quite an effort was able to cut the mop strings one at a time with surgical scissors.  We also had the presence of mind to take the before and after pictures.  After all this whole thing was a little "different".

The bird was not emaciated.  He was quite healthy.  That is the initial question of some who have trouble with God setting this thing up.  "He must have been unable to flee because of starvation".  I took him back to where I found him and into the water he went.  I watched him swim across the pond, get up in a tree and from all I could gather live happily ever after.  Was that God?  No question in my mind. 

 Greg