Piles of dead birds... Mystery SOLVED?

Again, on my walk, I encountered a pile of dead birds. Explanations involving UFOs or Satan worshippers faded as I looked directly up from the spot, above it - an eagle perch. The gluttonous eagles are killing more thrush than they are eating, dropping their left-overs on the ground. The thrush, showed no signs of trauma due to the swift and lethal internal-organ piercing eagle talons. 

2 Dead Birds

The other bird isn't dead yet - the other Varied Thrush that I found - one dead, the other dying, within feet of each other today on our walk. The dying one I rushed back to my house and fed it honey-laced soy milk in a feeble attempt to revive it. It's sitting on my kitchen table in a cardboard box, in the throes of death. The already-dead one, I posed with other items procured on our walk today: a weird piece of driftwood, a bone from someone and a shmoo-shaped rock. Yes, that bird is dead. Hard to believe, seeing it's glassy eye. When I picked it up, it was still warm, but stiff. And why would two identical birds die within feet of each other? Suicide pact? Fight to the death? 

Yes, that is my house in the background, rotting. 

The dying bird occasionally thrashes around in its box. The mind may have gone on, but the body always fights it. It's instinct. Basic biology. If you've ever watched a creature die, it's not at all like "in the movies." The body fights it. It's too soon. Not now. This can't be.

Taking this picture of the dead bird reminds me of Mr. Audubon who killed every bird who modeled for his paintings. Oh, what a FUNNY STORY of him trying to kill the golden eagle so he could paint it... (sarcasm) 

Talk to the Hand

It's been a couple days since I took the pooches for a good walk, so they were all wound up. Comet was running circles in the field, barking at everything and nothing. Stella found a rodent hole to concentrate on and Leon, well, with the attention span of a gnat, you can imagine that he was very busy.

So I paused for a while to sit on the log bridge that spans the newly-restored stream. Not long ago, a coho swam underneath as I was walking across, so I was hoping to catch sight of another one today.

In no time, something swam right underneath my dangling feet. But it wasn't a coho. It wasn't even a fish. It startled me at first and I turned around to see if it would surface for air behind me, downstream. It never did.

Was it a beaver? I've seen evidence of beaver all around the trails - chewed ends of branches and tracks near the river. But this seemed too small to be a beaver and didn't have that big, wide tail.

Was it a RAT? No. It just couldn't be a rat. It swam so smoothly, like a streak and never came up for air the whole time I watched. Oh please, don't be a rat.

Was it a river otter? There's a thought. I had no idea.

When I got home, I Googled "River Otter" and found some pictures including the one above. Unless river otters are small, like large-rat-sized, I don't think what I saw was an otter either.

So the mystery remains.

UPDATE! It was a young beaver!