Lisa's personal site
Hello Eagle Friends,
Today was a wonderful day in the valley. The birds were everywhere. The colors saturated the valley bringing it to life. Of course, any day that Em accompanies me, is a wonderful day. The temperatures reached the low 30's and we had sunshine and blue skies again. However, we also had blowing snow that created snow drifts on the winding road. Not only that, the strong winds bit at my face as I was still suffering a wind-burn from yesterday.
Em has been so good all week that I stopped at a store and told her to pick out a little stuffed animal. She couldn't decide between a handful of puppies, a rat, a kangaroo with baby joey, or the lion.
After several minutes of holding each animal she pulled the lion from its pride just as a 20 year-old-man who had been looking through the stuffed animals spoke, "No way, this is just like they are in Texas."
We looked over, and he was holding up the stuffed armadillo, the one we wanted last week. The one with brown begging eyes, and the realistic vinyl armour.
I smiled back to this curious, young man who had stolen a moment of my attention, "Yes he looks real, but open up that price tag and you'll see they want $32 dollars for him."
He opened the red tag and said, "Whoa." Can't do that price." He kept shaking his head as he smiled and as he continued turning the stuffed armadillo over and over. "This is just how they look though, but usually they are dead on the highway. You never see them alive."
"I know. I've seen many dead armadillo's on the Texas highways. I never saw live one either."
Em and I went up to the counter and bought the little stuffed lion, then set out on our journey.
In fact, Em still hasn't put him down. We ate at a little diner tonight. As Em waited for dinner
the lion became her inspiration for a crayon drawing on the back of her place-mat. Then when dinner arrived he sat plopped between my gyros and Em's chicken strips dinner, eyeing my baklava.
Back to our day:
Em brought along a large assortment of artistic muses from her half-filled nature journal, to markers, colored pencils, notebooks, and her color crayons just in case she got bored. I love watching her "documenting" the world she sees.
We bundled up and headed out to our first post at Daedee and Dancer's nest area. She was busy drawing a lions face in the snow with a stick that she plucked from the flood brush, while I shot images of their eagle nest. Nest 1. Daedee and Dancer were not around their nest area during the short time we stayed.
I drove up to show Em the snipe, but I could only find one of them today. My new lens arrived yesterday, technically it's not a lens, but a 75x spotting scope with 25x, 50x, and 75x magnifications. I like the fact that I can hand hold it and still get a couple shots. The quality is disappointing, but when it makes the difference in documenting something from afar, or not at all, I'll take all the "disappointment" I can shoot.
The trumpeter swans were side-lit from the late afternoon sun, and I photographed them standing on the edge of their pond. You may wonder why I'm still shooting pictures of them, and if I don't have enough by now. Everyday those swans show me something new about themselves, about their bond with each other, and their relationship with the other waterfowl.
Every day that's what I shoot-images of their daily life. I don't just shoot pictures of swans. I shoot their continuing story.
I saw two eagles flying around Nest 3 and I wondered if they were courting, but two hunters
were back there, and the eagles flew off beyond the frozen water, and deeper into the valley.
All nests were empty on my first pass through. When I backtracked I found Nest 5 eagles were both perched on branches above their nest. Please keep in mind nests 3-5 are shot from over a half mile away, so the quality is okay at best. I sort of like these distant shots, these unobtrusive views of their private lives together.
The drive home was a never ending stretch of one foot snow drifts. The road had snow blowing across it so strongly that the car in front of me looked like it was driving on clouds.
Tonight we made a trip to the local Barnes & Noble. I picked up a new market guide, and Em picked out a handful of paperbacks to read and create from.
Then we went a movie. The Spiderwick Chronicles. Em clutched her little lion during a couple edge-of-your-seat moments.
I think Em said it best, "This has been a great day!"
I'm looking forward to Day 40.
See you on the journey--
Lisa
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