Birdland

These crappy photos of two very elusive birds were taken by my husband and myself. The owl has been hanging around our friends cabin but we only heard his call and never saw him until the night before we left. I only got to see him swooping through the pine trees. My husband got close enough to take this photo- which was still a good distance away. We are sure this is a juvenile Great Horned Owl but we are cannot tell if it is a male or a female.

The Bald Eagle was perched on a power pole line right across the lake the first time I saw him. I snapped this photo and as you can tell he was even farther away than the owl when I took it. This bird stayed around for two days and then disappeared. We think he was attracted to the numerous dead or dying fish that were in the lake. The dying fish were the cause by two things, first, the lake turned over, a phenomena that has never happened in past years since the upper layer of water never got hot enough for turnover to occur. I guess we can blame global warming again. Second, the fresh water supply that usually flows into the lake was blocked off by humans which lowered the oxygen levels in the lake. When the lake turned the fish started dying. The eagle probably ate until his hunger was sated and then flew on.