Kestrels and Eagles and a Bull...Who Knew?

It was one of those days where I just went out to see what I could see without much of an agenda.  

A Kestrel sits on a wire and stares at me. Ordinarily they zip off immediately on eye contact.

And he' UP!

Down...

 And off he goes into the woodlot.

The next thing not on an agenda was a lot bigger and impossible not to see.

Yes, it is a very large bull (note the large sunlit scrotum) chomping grass OUTSIDE the fence right next to the road.  The appropriate behavior of a person who sees this sort of thing is an attempt to find someone who will get Mr. Bull back in the pasture.   Not only might the animal be hit by a car, but a car running into 1400...1600 pounds of bovine is no joke either for the driver.  I look around....no car, or truck at the farm house.  No signs of life.

Then Bull's head turns slowly, ever so slowly toward me.  He stares.  I don't think he likes me.  Actually bulls often don't like much I'm told.  He keeps staring.  I decide to move the car forward very slowly, find a place to turn around and check the farmhouse up the road for a human who deals with this sort of thing.  No luck there either.  Okay plan two.  Call the sheriff....I don't know how to call the sheriff.  It isn't as if I have him on speed dial.  Just  then a pick up truck comes down the lane... they slow and stop.  A guy gets out with a rope.  I wave, he waves and I head down the road....back to the conservation land and wild animals that I understand...and also aren't a jillion times my size.

I park the car on the verge, get out, and something flies over my head and into the treeline.  Can you see it?  That dark spot left of center towards the top of the trees in the distance

It's a Bald Eagle! I've never seen one this close to town.  And when he lands just shy of a pond full of geese and a marsh with several Sandhills in it, you would not believe the the honks and calls that build into a chorus.

Eagle preens a little and then looks off in the opposite direction from the avian cacophony from the pond

Eagle then appears to be just staring off into space.  The honking and quacking continues.

Then Eagle does look over at the pond and it's varied wildlife, sits there looking around for about 20 minutes and then flies off to the North, conceivably this is one of the eagles from the TenEyck nest. 

Happy Hawking!

DB