Hello Friends,
It was a cold Monday in the valley. However, the sun was shining brightly, and the blue skies set against the pristine white snow was a refreshing change from the dull gray skies set against the flatly-lit valley these past few days. The air temperature hung between 2 degrees and 4 degrees, but with the biting winds it was about -10 degrees with the wind chill.
I saw lots of eagles today. I saw the new eagle from either the nest two or nest three pair perched in the same tree as yesterday watching the river below. An eagle who watched me--watch him for awhile before I moved on.
The trumpeter swan pair was banked again on the edge of the open water. Mallards and some blue-winged teals swam in and out in front of them. A man stopped by my truck, a bird photographer, his name was Bill Drawkowski, and he said, "Did you know these are trumpeter swans?" He said they came in on January 1, 2008 according to the DNR. I was thankful for that answer. I told him how I had been on the DNR Website last night and read
that the tundra have a yellow-- he cut me off already knowing what I was about to say, "That's not always accurate." I liked
how he knew his birds. See you pray up a question, the next day--in this case--the answer came today.
He said they would be out doing a golden eagle count this weekend. He mentioned there are two down here. I told him I think
people are seeing the eaglets. Two people have told me they thought they saw two golden eagles, and both times they were
the eaglets.
Still, if they are here, I'd love to photograph them.
I saw two pileated woodpeckers today but missed my opportunity to shoot both when they flew into heavy branch cover.
My highlight today was observing the turkey vultures diving in front of each other. When one landed on the rocky point another would come along and fly down knocking him back into the air. They were a mile away, so my view was limited to the
power of my lens. It looks like there may be a cave where they were and that makes me want to hike up to the top and see if they are nesting inside. They do that around here.
Daedee and Dancer flying with one eaglet was another highlight of my day. From the ground looking up to the trio who performed air movements like Blue Angels, it looked like Dorothy's wing
pattern. The backward "L" on one side, mostly white feathers on the underside of the other wing. Dorothy is the eaglet in the middle (above).
Tomorrow is my first milestone. One week down, 33 to go, give or take a couple weeks. It's good to be back.
See you on the journey--
Lisa
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