totoro
Mom? What's a difficult child?
The water in front of our house has been slowly freezing... it is a little safe haven for the coots to huddle from the Golden and Bald Eagle. The water stays somewhat warm here, due to the flow of the river into the lake, we are right at the mouth. It kind of circles here, so it freezes in a funny way. Well it has been bitter cold this year, it is 14 right now not including the windchill...
So the water is almost completely frozen... we have a couple hundred fat little coots huddled in this shrinking space of unfrozen water....
They can barely move... I can see it while I am typing... So there are at times 2-5 Bald, Golden and Juvenile Eagle "hanging" out around these terrified coots!!!
So the Eagle will lift off and fly above them, and then just dive down and pick one off!!! Like an hors'doeuvre... and they swim frantically around the little patch of water... diving under and flapping and lifting up a little in the air. The Eagles will just take turns snatching the poor things... these dumb birds just keep huddling, whoever is in the middle is safe, or whoever dies down is safe...
Then back to huddling... While the Eagles stand around like the mob picking out the next victim...
I wish my video camera could reach that far... It is sad, but cool at the same time. The Eagles are beautiful to watch, but you feel kind of bad for the coots.
So the water is almost completely frozen... we have a couple hundred fat little coots huddled in this shrinking space of unfrozen water....
They can barely move... I can see it while I am typing... So there are at times 2-5 Bald, Golden and Juvenile Eagle "hanging" out around these terrified coots!!!
So the Eagle will lift off and fly above them, and then just dive down and pick one off!!! Like an hors'doeuvre... and they swim frantically around the little patch of water... diving under and flapping and lifting up a little in the air. The Eagles will just take turns snatching the poor things... these dumb birds just keep huddling, whoever is in the middle is safe, or whoever dies down is safe...
Then back to huddling... While the Eagles stand around like the mob picking out the next victim...
I wish my video camera could reach that far... It is sad, but cool at the same time. The Eagles are beautiful to watch, but you feel kind of bad for the coots.
