[Tweeters] Ridgefield Parking permit...Last year I saw some eagles having the same trouble fishing on Lake Washington here in Seattle. Like your birds they turned their attention to the other birds on the lake, in this case gulls, with a much different result. Instead of dropping onto a group one dropped on a single bird and then held it under water for 3 or 4 minutes till it was drowned. He/she then took it into a nearby tree to tear it apart limb by limb, or should I say wing by wing, much like the lions probably took apart the Christians. It was one of the most spectacular "displays of nature" I'd ever seen.
Bruce Lagerquist
Seattle,Wa
sonjabruce at hotmail.com<mailto:sonjabruce at hotmail.com>
----- Original Message -----
From: Guttman,Burton<mailto:GuttmanB at evergreen.edu>
To: tweeters at u.washington.edu<mailto:tweeters at u.washington.edu>
Sent: Monday, November 13, 2006 2:22 PM
Subject: [Tweeters] Drama on the lake today


This morning one of our local Bald Eagles created a lot of excitement for the Coots here on Long Lake outside Lacey. For a while, the eagle seemed to be fishing, hovering over the lake and occasionally diving, but it never caught anything. We have at least 200 Coots on the lake, as usual, and after a while the eagle turned its attention to them, chasing the flock hither and thither, forcing them into the reeds or under some overhanging trees. Now and then the eagle perched for a while, then took up the chase again. I never saw it catch a Coot, and it's gone now. I would have thought that by diving into a closely packed raft, it could easily catch one, but it didn't. I felt sorry for the little coots, but also for the hungry eagle. I'm reminded of the story of the woman who took her little boy to a movie about Roman times, including a scene where they were throwing Christians to the lions (did that ever really happen?), and the boy started to cry. So she naturally tried to comfort him--it's just movie, they aren't really killing people, and so on--and he said, "Mommy, that poor little lion ain't got no Christian!"

Burt Guttman
The Evergreen State College
Olympia, WA 98505 guttmanb at evergreen.edu<mailto:guttmanb at evergreen.edu>
Home: 7334 Holmes Island Road S. E., Olympia, 98503


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