A fish out of water

Cape Coral, Florida (where we live) has more miles of canals than any other city on Earth. There are lots of things that live in these canals including alligators, snakes, and turtles. You never know what you are going to come across when you are near a canal. 

With all these canals everyone lives near if not on a canal. We are about 9 houses from a canal in one direction and about a 1/4 mile from the one behind us. The other day I was taking the dog out back for a potty run and came across something interesting....

This CrawDad was sitting in the grass staring at us. I was the only one in the house awake so I scooped him up in a recently emptied ice cream bucket to show everyone when they finally dragged themselves out of bed. The kids were thrilled to see him. Doesn't he look like a little lobster? CrawDads are delicious too. The kids touched him then it was time to do some online research to see if he would make a good pet. Nope, too much work. Thank goodness lol. After looking at him for a couple hours I had the kids take him down to the canal to set him free.

Now the million dollar question is how did a water creature end up in my backyard? As far as I can figure, a bird must have been doing some fishing and dropped him as he was flying by. You never know what a bird might bring in the yard. Hopefully the next thing will not be alive (or recently killed).