This fancy-looking guy or gal showed itself yesterday while Chicken Corner was taking a walk around the park with her pal Martin Cox, dog Chyla, and for a little while Dave Foster, who manages the park on site for Park & Rec. The crayfish stayed in view for about 40 seconds, then hastened into the crack in the cement (mid-ground in the photo), exactly where it was headed at the moment Martin snapped the photo with his cell phone.

Toward the end of the walk we encountered the famous goose Maria, who stayed away from the other birds, preferring the proximity of a few guys with fishing poles and a few others smoking a joint as well as a guy washing his face in the drinking fountain. Dave Foster said that Maria has become a handful. She is attached to a man named Dominic who comes to visit her at the lake. But when Dominic leaves on his motorbike, she flies after him and has nearly been hit by cars. So now, the park employees grab her when Dominic is ready to leave and put her in an enclosure, until Dominic is gone.

Foster said there's talk that a pond or two could be created during the draining of Echo Park Lake so that the year-round ducks, geese, heron (there's about 12) and other birds will have a place to live during "construction."

And the crayfish?

Still, Chicken Corner is hugely in support of an on-site pond plan.