We’ve discussed this before and I’m sure it’ll come up again but the topic of the so-called "putrid pathway” at White Rock Lake keeps coming up — probably because it’s starting to feel like winter, which is when it gets really bad …

Many of us who use the lake have come to accept the area along its trail, past Mockingbird bridge near the West Lawther curve, that stinks — and when I say STINKS, I mean that it makes the dog park smell like roses. It is the spot where the fish-gobbling double-crested cormorants roost when they migrate here for the winter. They live on fish from the lake and they poop a bunch, at least that’s how it’s been explained to me.

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Anyway, I received an e-mail from a reader last week urging us Advocate editors to “get some commotion stirred up about those nasty birds (a.k.a. water turkeys) on the northwest shore of the lake, right before you get to Mockingbird … their pooh all over the tree’s emits a retched fishy odor and it is slowly killing the tree’s because the leaves can not absorb any sunlight,” he wrote.

I don’t know that I can do anything to rid our walkways of the dirty birds. But I suppose I can do my part to raise awareness. Here’s my advice: when you come upon the area in question — oh you’ll know when you are there — step off the path and up on to the road for a few feet. It’s just a slight detour. Or just hold your breath and run real fast through the section. Whatever you do, don’t look up.