The next week or so was fascinating to witness the avian attack on the dead deer. The first day was quiet but then the crows (ravens?) found it. I’m afraid I can’t really discern the difference between crows and ravens – I heard that crows migrate and ravens don’t but that doesn’t seem to be true. It was definitely ravens scouting the carcass when I first discovered it, they were very big but out on the lake it’s harder to tell. I’m going with ravens.

But then it got interesting. The bald eagles started arriving.

Within an hour of the first eagle’s arrival there were at times 4 of them out there, along with ravens. Wishing I had a better camera since I couldn’t get close enough for a good picture – every time I came out they would fly away.

The most interesting thing by far was the interaction between the ravens and the eagles. Clearly the ravens were comfortable on the ice when the eagles were on the ice and in the air when the eagles were in the air, but they would not be caught in a situation where they were on the ice and the eagles were in the air.

The ravens kept their distance while continually sneaking in to snag morsels of dear. But the funniest thing to watch was the ravens torturing the eagles by sneaking around behind them and yanking their tail feathers. You could see the eagles get very angry and you would think they would snuff a raven just for the satisfaction. But I guess the ravens are just too fast. The ravens seemed to do it for fun as much as anything. I watched one raven torture an eagle even when he was 20 feet away from the carcass.

So that was fun. I know there was some small 4-footed creatures out there at night – I could see their foot prints in the soft ice – but I could ne