It was nothing short of a bird riot.

The screaming was so loud my ears hurt.
It started with one crow sounding rather bothered and it escalated into a tree full -cackling, cawing and crowing as if life itself depended on it.

At first I thought it was a fight for food with some seagulls, but as more crows flew to the flock and the noise increased and sentries circled I realized it wasn’t about mating or food. The sky was crowded with crows. Kind of like a radar screen at the airport when the planes are stacked up and circling for a landing.

Crows are more predator than prey.
So I settled in to wait. (This is way more fun than parking myself in front of a TV or computer)
After about 1/2 hour of frantic behavior, the flock settled a bit. The silence was really loud, even the song birds were quiet.

Finally I found the nest.
Very cool. An eagle has decided a big pine tree on the property is home.

The next day I found the sparrow under the tree, still warm, neck cleanly snapped.
The eagle and I had just missed each other by a minute or so. I left his/her lunch by the water and backed off. We’ll meet up sometime.

We’ve had intense thunder storm cells coming through the area the past few days so I haven’t had an opportunity to watch for the eagle.
But these two showed up. The trumpeter swan takes shelter on shallow lakes.
They have been busy talking to each other. They don’t quite out-trumpet the crows but they are loud.
The pair are keeping their distance from people, and I’m quite ok with that. If these two decided to go into attack mode, they’d stretch taller than I am and do some serious damage.
Storms bring interesting things our way.