Take a Look at My Mussels

At this very moment, your editor is comfortably numb and is, if everything is going according to plans, again having a snake run through the plumbing in his body’s most important muscle.  It thus occurs to him how strange it is that with muscles as run down and faulty as his, people at one time asked him to come speak about and display his marvelous mussels.  And some, believe it or not, actually took interest in such a thing.  If the reader finds this odd, he or she would not be alone.  But the peculiarities don’t stop there.  The reader may find further bewilderment after being informed that the editor’s mussels are now in the collection of a regional museum where they are preserved for study by qualified persons with scientific proclivities.  All of this show and tell was for just one purpose—to raise appreciation and sentiment for our mussels, so that they might be protected.

Click on the “Freshwater Mussels and Clams” tab at the top of this page to see the editor’s mussels, and many others as well.  Then maybe you too will want to flex your muscles for our mussels.  They really do need, and deserve, our help.

We’ll be back soon.

Really Bad Poetry

Nothing says Happy Valentine’s Day like a really bad poem, so here it is…

 

FOR THE LOVE OF DUCKS

 

I like to feed the duckies

Try it and you’ll see

Aren’t they really lucky?

Relying just on me

 

My neighbors are complainin’

I can hear them talk

The mallards eat their garden

Let surprises on their walk

 

Dung stains on the carpets

They tracked it in the house

It’s from those ducks and not the pets

Can’t blame it on the spouse

 

I like to feed the duckies

Try it and you’ll see

Aren’t they really lucky?

Relying just on me

 

Tamed with bread and crackers

I gave them as a treat

I soon found maimed dead quackers

Lying in the street

 

A driver who intended

To miss the hens and drakes

Had their car rear-ended

When they hit the brakes

 

I like to feed the duckies

Try it and you’ll see

Aren’t they really lucky?

Relying just on me

 

The flock is very wasteful

Each bird a pound a day

Web-foots in a cesspool

Pollute the waterway

 

There are some kids playing

In that filthy ditch

Soon they’ll be displaying

The rash of Swimmer’s Itch

 

I like to feed the duckies

Try it and you’ll see

Aren’t they really lucky?

Relying just on me

 

These ducks they do not migrate

They’re here day in, day out

Aquatic life they decimate

No plants, no fish, no trout

 

Hurry! Hurry! Heed my call

Before it starts to rain

Ten more ducklings took a fall

And are stranded in a drain

 

I like to feed the duckies

Try it and you’ll see

Aren’t they really lucky?

Relying just on me

 

Have you people lost your minds?

I see you by your fence

These ducks are cute and I am kind

It’s you who’ve lost your sense

 

Beggars from the handouts

My God what have I done?

Their senseless habits leave no doubt

Their instincts are all gone

 

I like to feed the duckies

Try it and you’ll see

Aren’t they really lucky?

Relying just on me

 

Now I know just what to do

Like one would teach a child

I’ll feed the ducks at the zoo

And let the rest live wild

 

So if you feed the duckies

Beware of the spell

Or you will do the same as me

Loving ducks to death as well

 

—Ducks Anonymous, LLC

 

They’re cute, but if you really love waterfowl, then please refrain from feeding them.  Hand-fed ducks soon lose their survival instincts.  These clueless birds do dumb things like loiter in traffic and, perhaps worst of all, omit migration from their yearly life cycle.  Daily plundering by year-round congregations of Canada Geese, Mute Swans, polygamous Mallards (seen here), and domestic waterfowl is decimating native plant and animal populations in waterways, wetlands, ponds, and lakes throughout the Lower Susquehanna River Watershed.  For aquatic food chains and fisheries to recover, people must stop feeding (and releasing) these highly-impressionable birds.