bluebirds over the mountain

seagulls over the sea

so I head up to Lake Casitas Wednesday morning to check out the bald eagles nesting in the eucalyptus tree...so I'm driving up Highway 150 past ranches and turkey vultures sitting on mailboxes..

so I get up to the lake and boy it's way down level-wise...we must be in a drought....so I get to the entrance of the lake and pay 10 bucks for a day pass.. I ask the kid if he knows where the bald eagles are and he's not really sure, but probably down by the launch area..

ok so I follow the long windy road to a big parking lot and there's a bunch of eucalyptus trees and I stop and get out...I look over at the trees and see a giant nest...a fortress deep and mightier than the Alamo..and a big bird sitting there...ooohhh, cool I thought...that must be the eagle so I took out my binoculars and saw not an eagle, but an egret... a big giant egret...then I look around the eucs and see more nests all clustered close by....and more egrets.. I came to see bald eagles and I get fucking egrets!!

I can see egrets in Carp... we're lousy with egrets at the Salt Marsh...Egrets are like conservatives..noisy, incompetent and pretty much useless...

so I walk around and go over to the diner and bait shop and see some boats docked...just few folks in the diner trading bird stories..I tell them there's sure a lot of egrets in those eucalyptus trees...

a blonde lady screams "This isn't a few birds! I keep telling you that! These are egrets and herons"
an elderly lady looks at her, then me and says " And what? Vultures? Hawks? Eagles?"

the blonds lady starts crying so I says "Yes. I think they plan on killing us all...or at least crapping on your shiny new RVs!"

turns out the old lady was an ornithologist named Mrs. Bundy....she peered at me while sucking on a cigarette a mile long and worbled "I have never known birds of different species to flock together. The very concept is unimaginable. (laughing) Why if that happened, we wouldn't have a chance. How could we possible hope to fight them?

as I headed for the exit, I turned to the old lady and said " We couldn't. You're right, Mrs. Bundy.

 

so I go over to some other eucalyptus trees and see a few more nests...more egrets and some herons..so I see a park ranger guy...he's bald and I ask him if he knows where the bald eagles are..he says "no"- he's never heard about them...I find it very curious that there's bald eagles nesting up here at the lake and nobody seems to know much about them....very curious indeed

I look one last time and see a stork up high in a lonely nest..perhaps he's babysitting for the bald eagle???

no..I doubt it......at this point I feel a knot in my stomach...like that feeling you get when you see your girlfriend with another guy all smoochy woochy

I've been had...there's no eagles here..the stories on EDHAT and other places are fabrications...one big giant hoax..I re-check the pictures online when I got home and yes it looks like they've been photo-shopped..those pictures of the eagles are too clear and oddly- colored and the adult eagle has a little smirk on his face....

as a tear rolled down mine