Out at the Lake in the Morning

Went out for a short walk before running errands this morning.  The lake is finally being treated to control the toxic algae overgrowth.  Treatment has consisted of the daily application of aluminum sulphate via boat.  This will last for two weeks and began April 4.  I began to see dead fish along the water's edge.  Men continued to fish along the shore.  Speaking to a few of them as I made my way around the lake, they mentioned counting the dead fish: ten along this stretch, ten along that stretch.  I asked if they would eat what they caught, one said they gave them to their neighbor, and had seen no ill effects.  There is no posted warning regarding eating the fish, only that the water is being treated.  The water looks clear.  I counted 64 dead fish, plus one massive, gasping, catfish a fisherman in waders was trying to push into deeper water to see if it would help, but when the fish continued to gasp, he commented that it's air bladder seemed messed up and it couldn't right itself.  (I did also see live fish, swimming and leaping normally.)

Halfway around the lake, having decided at some point to walk the whole thing and count fish, I encountered a patch of last year's cottonwood leaves, only the fibrous skeletons remain.  Here is one of those.

Last Year's Leaves, April 9/L Herlevi 2016

In the bird world.  The waterfowl have paired off for the season, breaking up the massive flocks of winter.  Cormorants perch, stretching out their wings to dry.  Above them, flashes of white, and my first actual sighting of the swallows.  These are the white-bellied variety, the advance team:  not many.  Two large-winged birds chirp and fly over the lake, the ducks don't seem overly concerned, so I originally think they must be Osprey, but further along, a small group of people are looking up into a tree, and the general consensus seems to be that they were Bald Eagles, the one above, a juvenile, in dark plummage.  I see one goose baby, paddling along the water, under the protection of four adults, which guard it on all sides.  A long Pied-billed Grebe resting amid cattails.  And then, suddenly I see a Green Heron, very unexpected.  Attempted to get a photo, but unlike the Great Blue Herons, these are shy, they do not pose for the camera.  (And the auto-focus was confused by the brached.)  This is the best I got.

Green Heron, April 9/L Herlevi