Wednesday 21 November 2012

Insect hunting and fishing

Yesterday I bought Liam a fishing/bug catching net. I'd seen them at the discount store in town when it opened a few weeks ago, and had been meaning to buy him one. Caitlin was going to my friend's house for the afternoon and Liam was disappointed that he couldn't stay - I offered to buy him the net as compensation for coming to the shops and then home with me, and he was thrilled. We did some groceries first, then he asked for the money to go and get his net, and ran ahead to the shop. When I got there he was coming out the door, looking very disappointed, and the people in the shop were looking concerned. He said he'd asked for it and they said they didn't have them anymore - there were certainly none in the bucket at the front door like I'd seen previously! He was starting to get upset, and I said we'd have a look and then I'd ask again. Up the back, in a tub with all the left over Halloween gear, there was ONE net - and it was blue, perfect for Liam! So, waving it triumphantly and luckily not knocking anything of the shelf, he took it up the front and paid for it himself (which is a new thing he's started doing recently).

He chased Millie with it and caught her a few times on the way back to the car, and couldn't wait to get home to try it out on bugs. He rushed into the yard as soon as we pulled up and ran around after bugs and birds and bees, but wasn't able to catch anything. I tried to help for a while but I had no luck either. (On Monday there was a swarm of bugs through the yard and it would have been impossible not to catch anything, but most of them had moved on by yesterday afternoon). Liam said he'd like to try to catch some fish with it and wanted to go down to the dam. I'd been feeling dizzy and light headed all day and didn't feel up to a walk to the dam, which I explained to him. He suggested we drive - at first I thought 'I'm not driving such a short distance' (my instinctual response) then realised that it could be the difference between him getting to the dam or not.

So Millie and Liam and I jumped in the car - Millie wanted her seatbelt on, while Liam was excited about not needing it as we were just on the property - and we drove down. As we approached the dam there was a bird of prey hovering near the edge, it moved ahead of us as I slowly pulled in, then landed at the the edge of the water for a drink. It was bigger than the birds we normally see hovering around here, with a speckled brown coat and white underneath its tail. We looked it up in the Field Guide to Victorian Fauna on the ipad when we got home, and I think it was a Little Eagle. I've never seen one before and it certainly made the trip to the dam worthwhile!

Liam fished in the dam for a while and I was going to stay in the car and rest, then thought a better decision would be to hop out and enjoy the wind and the fresh air and the feel of the dam. I scooped up some mud for him with his net and we found one little slimy creature. He was so happy playing there, and after a few minutes he said he'd had enough and we could go home and dry out his net. We tried to catch a few bugs from the reeds around the dam, and I got one - the same ones that were swarming on Monday so he wasn't overly interested as he'd caught several of them with his hands. We drove home with the net out the window to see if we caught anything in passing - I don't think we did, however he was satisfied that we'd really given his net a good try out and he no longer seemed to care that we hadn't caught anything.

The whole trip to the dam was a really lovely 10 minutes and I'm so glad I was able to say yes and find a way to make it happen, rather than dismissing his excitement and saying I was too unwell to go.

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