A canine friend ready for a frolic.  A puppy prepared to pounce.  A million other familiar references.

This picture has always tickled me, always put a healthful smile on my face.  A trick of angle, sure, for anyone watching from a different vantage would have seen nothing more intriguing than a nutria (a.k.a. coypu; Myocaster coypus) climbing the inclined shore of White Rock Lake in Sunset Bay.

Yet my vantage, lying prostrate on the ground uphill from the water’s edge, made it look as though this behemoth rodent was in fact getting ready for some rough-and-tumble play.