Subject: Eagles at Green Lake
Date: Jan 24 17:49:51 1999
From: cametobe at ix.netcom.com - cametobe at ix.netcom.com


Had wonderful luck at Green Lake today, from the
steps of the west swimming area near the Bathhouse
Theater. Saw the female dragging a huge branch
behind her, go west all the way across the lake, &
drop it into the top of a huge conifer. Then I
found her mate, on the east side of the lake, high
up in a decidous tree. Went back to watching her,
and suddenly the crows on Duck Island alerted me.
He was there, dining on a fish he'd just caught;
I could see the big chunks getting ripped out and
swallowed; amazing. She joined him, and then they
both flew to a tree near the possible nest site.

Being a tiny bit obsessive, I made these mental notes:

Vantage 1: steps of west swim area: find the 3 radio
towers to the left/south, and Duck Island to the
right/north. In about the middle, is a smaller
tower; a short distance to its right, is a large
conifer, about the same height as the tower,
lacking some branching at the top. This is where
she dropped the branch. The conifer immediately
to the right of the tower (the nest tree is about
the 5th tree over) is where they both perched for
quite a bit.

Vantage 2: Picnic Areas 5-6 (1st exit to Green
Lake off northbound 99 AFTER fenced area of zoo).
>From the lawn bowling fence (lake side), looking
towards the horseshoe pits, there's a
vista framed by a nearby conifer on the left, and a
light tower on the right. In the middle, behind a
line of deciduous, is the nesting conifer, looking
a bit like a corkscrew from this angle. Because of
the missing branches there's ample room for them to
fly in/out, and the branches look very thick and
sturdy. Saw both of them in here at dusk, looking
very cozy.

Vantage 3: Same picnic area; take first right, and
park in first area to the left. On left side, stand
in front of fourth stall (from left); there's a big
deciduous tree right in front of you. Look a bit
left, maybe about 11:00, and in the middle distance
is that corkscrew nest conifer. Little harder to
see the birds due to branching, but a closer view.

I didn't want to approach too much closer, in case
they would decide to nest elsewhere (and I'd gone
to all this trouble to find them!)