Staycation sightings: eagles, ospreys, buzzards, and bobber-birds

We saw a half dozen great blue herons within our first ten minutes paddling on Deer Creek Lake early this morning, and later we saw kingfishers, ospreys, eagles, whole families of ducks, and turkey vultures, but at one point I got really excited because I thought I was seeing a red-headed woodpecker in the wild. Then I looked closer: it was a fishing bobber stuck in a tree.

But that's not the oddest thing we've seen two days into our Staycation. Yesterday we went for a drive around Cooper's Hollow wildlife area, where we looked at a furnace leftover from the days when southern Ohio was a pig-iron smelting area, and at one point we found ourselves on a remote potholed gravel road and we saw a huge flock of black vultures swirling around a field, with no carrion in view. What would draw so many vultures to this remote place? Then we saw the signs: this was where a nearby food-processing plant discards its sludge and used cooking oil. Yum?

Mullein is blossoming all over the place.

Defunct furnace at Cooper Hollow.

Just a few of the massive flock of black vultures.

Deer Creek Lake early this morning.

We saw many great blue herons.

Kingfisher

Osprey family in the nesting box above the lake.

Cormorants

Bad lighting, but that's a bald eagle.

Taking a break upstream from the lake.

We saw many ducks in the upper part of the creek.

Osprey carrying a small fish to the nesting box.