What Makes Lower Penn Lake Special

This is not so much a particular story as it is an account of what makes Penn Lake (at least the lower and larger part) so special over the course of the years. My wife and I moved across the street from Lower Penn Lake in 1989, and raised our family in sight of it. We never tire of looking out our living room window at this defining natural feature of our neighborhood. Just this morning, we spotted two bald eagles out on the ice. Now, as the lake begins to ice out, we're scanning the surface for migrating birds. In the past, we've seen mergansers, loons, coots, wood ducks and even swans pass through on their spring way north. The gulls were out today. A few weeks ago, we heard a pair of great horned owls hooing away somewhere in the cottonwoods along the lakeshore. Baltimore orioles annually nest in or near our yard, thanks in large part to the proximity of the lake. Snapping turtles. Herons. Egrets. Foxes. Canada geese and their marching broods. The expanse of the lake affords us wonderful panoramas of the sky and the weather that might be headed our way. So, for us, Lower Penn Lake isn't so much a recreational amenity, as it is a natural and undeveloped one. It's one of the main reasons we continue to live here.