Click banner to go to my host bio and listen to show at showtimes, Fridays at 11 AM EST, or to download archives anytime. This week is Pt. 1 Flashes of Hope, we will air Pt.2 next Friday.
Hello Eagle Friends,
It was a super Sunday in the valley. There was lots of activity in the area again. The weather was exceptionally warm coming in at around 34 degrees.
The strong winds cooled off our heat wave some but it didn't stop the animals, the birds, the insects or me from exploring.
I hiked along the river looking for Daedee or Dancer, the nest 1 eagle pair, but only found little snow fleas in the snow, those and tiny mosquito-like insects flying around me. I find it comforting to sit on the snow-covered embankment towering about twenty feet over the river and I close my eyes listening to the sound of heavily flowing water as it rushes by, always in a hurry.
I found Judy sitting up on her nest watching the traffic going by. Maybe she was second guessing their highway development?
Up the road I found the trumpeter swans standing at alert with a couple dozen geese honking, and throwing their headed up and down which means, "Get ready to fly" and then a moment later they spread their brown wings and lifted those swans right in the middle of their flight.
I couldn't believe it, why were they taking the swans? The geese circled and went north and the swans fell back out of the flight of the geese and they merely circled the adjoining frozen marsh and came gliding back in. I filmed them. It was another one of those "Kodak moments," where I had to quickly choose if I wanted video or still shots.
Their landing looked like a choreographed dance of the trumpeters. For both came in trailing each other landing at the same time and the mergansers looked up at them wondering what all the fuss was about.
There were about six female mergansers with two male common mergansers that arrived today. They were all swimming peacefully until one female crossed a male on his water path, maybe that showed dominance, or threatened his alpha position over her. He bit her several times in the neck and back and she fought back biting at him.
Then he went after her and she was smaller and lighter, quicker and skid behind her male. The one that must have brought her to this pond.
I thought I'd photographed all the excitement at this pond and was ready to leave when I noticed Dick and Linda, the nest 6 eagles perched high above their nest looking down. I was just ready to shoot their picture when an opossum walked out right in front of me.
Same place as yesterday's opossum, but I'm pretty sure this was a different opossum. So I followed him and took a few shots and left him to his day. He was so close I could have pet his head. Of course the animals over the years have always come to me, I don't try and hold them or make them pets.
I have shared many lunches with hummingbirds, butterflies, paper wasps, bumble bees, mice, deer mice, woodchucks and a snapping turtle, and many other creatures, but they are wild creatures meant to remain wild. If they come to me hungry or thirsty I never turn them away, because they'll just take it anyway, or so I've learned but holding them or petting them would make them loose their fear and that would be wrong.
I didn't find the cottontail today. I did find one eagle up above nest 5. Nest 3 and 4 eagle nests had no activity today.
On my second pass, the skies were a steel gray as I passed nest 3 again I noticed Sweetie, the red tailed hawk of nest 3 and 4, perched in an old crooked tree.
He was looking at something below just as the wind blew past, lifting up feathers on his shoulder. I shot that scene.
Further up the road I found The Mayor flying down from the bluffs, and I thought he would land on the nest with Judy but he didn't. I noticed the dark edges on his dusky-shadows, blue tail. That's when I took a good look at Judy. She was laying down in the nest.
She was laying down like she was laying on something. I smiled, because I think she might be on an egg. We'll see where she is tomorrow. Because if she is incubating either or her or The Mayor will constantly be on the nest for the next 30-36 days.
On my drive home, as I took the last bend out of the valley, I noticed an antler-less buck, a good 3-4 year old frozen, standing there motionless at the side of the highway. He
didn't even look real. He looked like a target deer the DNR puts out to catch poachers. I pulled over and he remained still, unmoved.
It didn't take long to pick up the "Human" in the air and he threw himself into a twenty yard trot. He stood peering at me between two big old trees. I filmed him and then shot a couple more picture of him walking up the bluff, and I could hear him
crunching through a crystallized layer of snow as he ascended.
As I drove home a light rain began to fall. I am ready for the rain. I am ready, just like the birds and the animals for spring to begin and for the valley to fill with chirps and maa's and mews, and all the other sounds of the open woods babies.
It was a lovely day in the valley.
I'm looking forward to Day 48.
See you on the journey--
Lisa
Click banner to go to my host bio and listen to show at showtimes, Fridays at 11 AM EST, or to download archives anytime. This week is Pt. 1 Flashes of Hope, we will air Pt.2 next Friday.
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment