WHAT is he doing?

Canadian blowing up a fish (photo by Chris Colaianni)
Captain Ray with a fish (photo by Chris Colaianni)

June 22, 2010

Chris Colaianni told me a story last week that involved a fish, this man and a bird.  It was the most astonishing thing he saw on his vacation.

In early June Chris went fishing at Lake Minnewanka in Banff, Canada with Captain Ray as the guide.  The group was doing catch-and-release so when they caught a big fish they Oooo’d and Aahhhh’d and let it go.   Then someone caught this small fish and Captain Ray said “Watch this!”

He put the fish’s head in his mouth and blew air into it.  After he’d blown into it a while he tossed the fish into the lake and it floated.  So… what kind of trick is this?

“Watch the fish.”

Until this point no one had been paying attention to birds.  Suddenly a bald eagle came out of nowhere, grabbed the floating fish and took it to its nearby nest.  Captain Ray was very proud of his bird trick.  “See, he gets the fish because it’s floating.”

Chris and his friends were grossed out by the fish-in-mouth technique but they wanted to see the eagle again so when they caught another small fish they killed it and threw it into the lake.

It floated.  The eagle came back again and grabbed the dead fish.

“That’s how Americans do it.”

It was a Canadian-American cross-cultural experience.

It reminds me of the Red Green show.

(photo by Chris Colaianni)

10 thoughts on “WHAT is he doing?

  1. geez. that is just weird. But seeing an eagle snag the fish makes up for the weirdness.

    btw, killing the fish might be more humane than inflating it. I’m just sayin’

  2. On second thought, maybe there is not enough to see. Although a couple of days ago I saw a pretty spirited fight over possession of a corpse.

  3. The National Aviary is not featuring the webcams on their home page because, as you remarked, the peregrines are mostly away from the nest. Soon there will be nothing to see.

  4. Weird, but interesting story. You have to wonder who thought up this trick in the first place, and if boredom and/or alcohol were involved 🙂

  5. Is there something wrong with that last chick at the GT that he is still hanging around the nest and doesn’t appear to be too strong? I see him flapping every now and then but most of the time, he seems to be just laying there…….

  6. LOL, that is one of the funniest stories I’ve heard. I am inclined to try it just so I can see a Bald Eagle on my next fishing trip up north!

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