On finding crayfish...

You may have guessed that I am a towny by nature. My wife and I gravitated to a city area because that is how we were brought up, and where our lives landed us. Since my career is based around a peculiar industry our options are the metro area where we are, or a similar one in hotter or wetter climates. However being a townie does not preclude a love for the beauties of nature.

This weekend I took the kids to a park. To give you an idea of what sort of park, it is built on what was industrial land between the railway embankment and an unnatural lake. The lake used to be part of The Bay, but got enclosed by a land fill which permitted a freeway to bypass the city. Sound idyllic? Probably not. However ten years ago the land which once held a saltwater pumping station for the soap factory was cleaned up and gifted to the city.

The park has old natural assets, like oddly tumbled pine trees which grow at points in parallel to the ground, and a line of eucalyptus trees which follow the railway embankment. Periodically there are drainage ditches. They are not the usual industrial, litter filled creeks, but more natural looking streams.

Well my kids are used to just bounding along, but if you take them near some still or slow water it is easy to get them looking at the water boatmen (pond skaters), dragonflies and tadpoles, or whatever we find. We were looking at the pond skaters and enjoying their antics when we noticed something orangish in color at the bottom of the brook. Crawdads, two of them! I've only ever seen them once before, but the boys never had. We delightedly watched them for a few minutes, until they had crawled under the rocks and behind the reeds. Then we carried on exploring.

There was plenty to see. We went under tree on the lake shore looking for critters (none found) and found the tree was lit by reflections from the lake, quite unusual lighting. We saw a pelican sat out on the water-ski jump. We found a hollow bush and hid inside and a few other fun things.

We had promised ourselves another look at the crawdads on the way back to the car. When we got back to the water there was none to be seen. Then I noticed at the head of the stream was a pond. We hit pay dirt. We spotted at least 20 crawdads of varying sizes. They all put on a bit of a show for us, tiptoeing around or vanishing in a cloud of silt. One even leapt to the waters surface and floated to a new resting place.

I was most gratified at how the boys were very interested in these little crustaceans. They delighted in seeing "wildlife". I too was pleased to find urban wildlife of this nature, it's like when you encounter skunks or raccoons in your neighbourhood and realize man has not taken over completely.

Of course, I do like being a townie. If we lived in the sticks we could not have rounded out our trip to the park with a visit to a creperie as easily. I wonder, do country kids get balze about nature? My kids still get that townie wow when the see natural spledours. I guess I just have to keep them connected to both sides of life.