Sunday, February 09, 2014

Finally Sunday Bald Eagle Miscellany Part 3! Or Maybe Not...

To recap, we'd just seen the Crows, Rock the Eagle, the Clever Vixen, and the Red-tail at the sport field.  All  those having skedaddled in one way or another I decided to head over to  the dam.  Dams with their open water are prime Eagle sighting spots.

I scanned the trees in front of me on both sides of the Dam.  Nothing.  DRAT!  And turned to go back to the car....

And there in the tree directly behind me was a juvenile Bald Eagle scanning the river for fish and paying not the least attention to me.  WOW.

At least SHE has the sense to look behind her as well as in front of her when she is hunting something.  Sigh.
Look how she has the twig in front of her face.  Raptors whenever possibly do try to obscure their shapes. Though she isn't paying the least attention to me, I feel obliged to give her a little more space.  Old habits.

 I wait.  She waits.  Still no fish.  Though she may have eaten recently and is just keeping an Eagle eye on prey for later.
Then suddenly she spreads those 7 foot wings, flies upstream closer to the dam and lands neatly in a new tree.  You can see from here how urban this area is and likely the reason she found no problem with me wandering up to her tree.

My phone rings.  It is Patty, the waitress from the Edgewater, letting me know that  the Indian Ford Bald Eagles have appeared.  

Now you ask, why when I have an Eagle am I going to jump in the car,  and scurry back to Indian Ford.  Well I need a photo of an Indian Ford Eagle for a story about Indian Ford that I'm writing for The Edgerton Reporter.  It would be cheating to use a Bald Eagle that was from the wrong neighborhood.  Ethics are important.

I just in the car and pray the Indian Ford Eagles won't decide to leave before I can get there.
Hooray!  They are still here but not in places in which my lens is going to get me what I need.
 I get one shot of the mate, which I know immediately isn't going to be sharp enough and while I adjust, he moves far, far, away.  


Wait!   What are they up to? 

Dear readers, it is going to be a cliff hanger.  Blogger won't let me load any more photographs.  Drat!

STAY TUNED MORE WHEN TECHNOLOGY GIVES ME A BREAK!

HAPPY HAWKING!
Donegal Browne


2 comments:

Sally said...

I would love to see all those eagles at a dam! I hope to be able to watch our resident pair nest again this year- I need to borrow a spotting scope!

Donegal Browne said...

I hope you get to watch your resident pair as well. Borrow that spotting scope and take a few pics. I'd love to compare eagle nesting behaviors from a few pairs on the blog!