Eagle Ice & Fish Heads

I just asked The Mrs if she was familiar with the song, “Fish Heads”, by Barnes and Barnes. She immediately started singing it, which truly surprised me because she is not normally so well versed with 70’s & 80’s music, especially the quirky stuff like, well, Fish Heads! This is the link to the original short movie from 1978…

If you have noticed my banner photo for the past week or so, you may have noticed that it is two Bald Eagles sitting on the ice just east of our dock here on Lake Springfield. I took that picture on December 28th. A couple days later, the temperature outside got warm enough for the ice to melt. This past week, the temps dropped again close to 0 degrees F, and the lake froze again. Two days ago, the young eagle was back again, this time flying over a flock of geese , looking for injured or sick ones. All the geese were healthy, so the young predator flew off, headed back (I assume) to what is affectionately called Bird Island. The eagles have a huge nest on the small island. It is illegal for humans to go onto the island in order to protect the variety of birds that nest there.

So…after the ice melted the first time around a couple weeks ago, I was down by the shoreline taking Lester (the cat) for a walk, and we both were surprised to see a catfish carcass lying in the rip-rap, mostly eaten.  Of course, I stumbled down to the water’s edge, grabbed the fish (head), and carried it up to the back deck and positioned it so it faced in towards the living room window in order to impress The Mrs…

I put the soda can next to the F-H for perspective, not cuz dead catfish are particularly fond of diet root beer…

The next morning, the fish head was lying on the deck under the table, totally devoid of skin or meat of any sort. Raccoons… And the following morning, the F-H skull was gone, never more to been seen. The Mrs, I’m certain, was very disappointed!!!