To investigate the reports of many birds feeding on winter killed fish up at the north end of the park.
Skied into 2 Oceans with Stephanie. After about an hour, we came close to the bank of the lake and flushed a few ravens, 2 immi bald eagles, 1 immi golden and an adult eagle. Upon reaching the bank, we flushed about 20 ravens, and a few more bald eagles. We saw no mammals moving, but there were many fresh coyote tracks, along with older wolf tracks. I estimated a total of 30 ravens, 7 BAEA, and 1 GOEA. I also heard a few magpies, but only saw one.
It appears that a bunch of fish had died within the lake and were near the surface of the ice around the western shore. In 6 places where small streams came in, the ice had thinned enough for the coyotes and birds to get through the ice and grab floating, dead fish. The minute we walked into the open, it smelled like rotting fish. We are only guessing at this point, but it seems that the fish are a perch or something, but not trout. Below is a picture of one of the "open" spaces in the lake where the critters were able to get some of the fish out from below the ice. Notice all of the dead fish.
I also picked up the dead raven from the middle of the lake that the cougar crew had reported. I was only able to find the wings and around them were a lot of coyote tracks. There were no raven tracks around the wings. It looked as if the coyotes had been feeding on them in various places and had moved the carcass a few times. From the looks of the feathers, I assumed the bird had not been a hatch year, as I would have expected. I do not know how the bird died, but I would imagine that the raven was feeding on the fish and a coyote or eagle caught the bird when it wasn't paying attention. Or, possibly, the bird may have fallen through thin ice trying to retrieve a fish, gotten wet and was unable to fly as fast as it would have needed to escape a coyote.... Who knows.
