Hello Eagle Friends,
Today was another gorgeous winter day here in Southeast Minnesota. The temperature was 18 degrees when I arrived in my project area. That is almost tropical weather after what we have
had these past couple weeks.
I parked my truck and snapped on my snowshoes, but had to readjust the straps because I have new boots this year.
I hiked about 3/4 of a mile south of Daedee and Dancer's nest and followed the river. I found
three trees for my tree book, and I'm becoming selective of what I will use. While I was standing there three deer across the river about five hundred feet drank from the edge of the
river.
I couldn't believe they didn't hear me crunching through the snow, or tossing my camera gear to the ground, unzipping my coat and all the noise I made trying to turn on the video camera to record them, and louder yet, my fumbling trying to mount my big lens on my camera before they ran away.
I know from experience, two to five shots, and they'll fly like Santa's reindeer if they can hear the shutter. That's why I started the video first, this way I get a couple extra minutes of footage.
I got a handful of shots, but I didn't scare them, they were simply moving on after their drink. I watched them all walk single file down the embankment and back up around a curve.
Then the bluebirds came in landing on thin ice isn't easy for a wee bird as them. I watched two of them fly in to the ice and slide across almost into the water. The ice on the edge of the river is tipping, sloped into the water due to the warmer temperatures today. Either they didn't expect that, or, that's just how you land in winter on ice if you are a bluebird.
After all that, they dipped their beak in for a tiny drink and flew off.
Another streak of blue, white and black bird landed beside me, about fifteen feet away on a four foot tree stump. It was a nuthatch who hopped down and pulled out a round peg, a wood knot from the stump, about an inch long and 1/2 inch wide, and he flew off with it in his beak.
What would a bird want with that?
A woodpecker who had been tapping on a tree above me, flew down into the goldenrod patch and began drilling out seeds.
I stayed on the river for about a half hour, just taking in the tranquil beauty of it's flow and then I put my camera gear back on my back and shoulder, picked up my tripod and video camera and hiked further south.
I couldn't believe it was already noon as I stood staring at a new area on the river. Then I did a double take back into the eyes of that buck and two does who were 150 feet away, just across the river.
I set up the video again, and once that was rolling I snapped off my couple shots before they moved on heading across the field back up the bluff where they will likely spend the day.
I must be the only one who finds deer milling about all day long. No matter what time of day it is, I find them grazing, drinking, playing, or sometimes I flush them, no intentionally, but just passing through an area.
I wonder where that buck lost his antlers? I know this: the woods will be full of men this weekend who will be out "horn hunting." I don't know why they call it horn hunting down in this area, when technically, deer don't shed horns, but antlers. Horns are shed from animals such as antelope, and others, but that's the lingo here, so I stick with it.
I hiked out and de-geared. As I drove to my other project area I saw a worker from the DNR (Dept. of Natural Resources), dragging out a deer carcass by the remains from the carcass the other day.
It's so important that they do this. I think of how many lives feed on one body of a dead deer, and did you know that when the deer are left roadside, many birds of prey, among others, are hit by vehicles when trying to fly off a carcass as vehicles approach?
So think on that the next time you see the DNR dragging a deer to a field, away from the highway. Don't concentrate on how one life ended, but think of how many lives will be saved.
Further down the way, I found the trumpeter swans sitting on the frozen ice with their heads tucked under their wings. They merely lifted them to look at me for about one second, then tucked their heads back under their wings. There were numerous canadian geese on the open water today. They will begin building their nests in just about 5 week or six weeks.
I didn't find any activity on any eagle nests today, except on nest 3. There was one eagle sitting on a upper branch, facing the river.
As I backtracked on my way home I saw one eagle on a tree perched over that deer carcass. The first bird on the scene was a mottled, brown and white eaglet. My heart raced wondering if it was Ditto, the first eaglet from Dancer and Daedee.
I haven't seen him in several months in the valley and I figured he'd just moved on. This eaglet wasn't the twins from 2006 year or last year, I was sure of that. He had too much white on his head and tail. He kept looking back at me, little double-takes; like I was something familiar to him. I couldn't resist so I finally called out, "Ditto?"
I know I'm reaching here, but when he turned his head back to me, even before I finished calling his name; if it was even Ditto, well I almost believed it was him. I wanted to know he was okay. I wanted to believe he stayed here beyond the first two years of his life.
He was now perched in a tall cottonwood tree. If it was Ditto, he was about .5 miles from the place I found him these last couple of years after his parents drove him out of their nest area. They stayed with him almost through his first year of life, but when they began nesting again, about 10 months after Ditto was born they drove him out.
I was there. I filmed an eaglet coming into his nest and the terror on his face when he was rejected by his mother who was sitting on the 2006 eggs. It was a chilly March day but the rainstorm soaked everyone, even the father eagle flying in at him shooing him out.
I remember the look on that eaglets face. He was never allowed in again.
So he moved upriver, and sat watching his parents raise their first set of twins.
The place I found him, I named, "Ditto's Alley in the Valley." For that's where he sat, far enough away to see the comings and goings, but no longer welcome in the nest area. He sat through
rain and snow, watching them. I know because I watched him, and filmed him.
I always knew when the dad was coming in for good old Ditto, he announced to the entire valley a vocalization everytime Dancer was coming in with a fish to the nest to feed his twins.
Eagles are amazing creatures, and there is so much we don't know about them. In these four nesting seasons, I haven't made in the half million images I've shot, not even a dent in what they offer us and share freely, if we would only take the time and sit with them awhile.
I drove home with Ditto on my mind an eaglet who wrote his story on my heart. When you look at that soulful picture above of the eaglet, whether I am right and it's Ditto or another, keep in mind he is a survivor, and that's not an easy thing for an eaglet to do in these harsh winters. He has made it though, the first two years of his life and chances are he'll make it another 20 or 30 years.
I'm looking forward to Day 25.
See you on the journey--
Lisa
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