Click banner to go to my host bio and listen to show at showtimes, Fridays at 11 AM EST, or to download archives anytime.
Hello Eagle Friends,
Today the air smelled like spring. I love that musty-wet smell, the kind that goes deep into your senses and gives me visions of green grass coming up through the earth, baby fawns at my feet, and the songs of cardinals singing. Everywhere I hiked I heard dripping sounds as the spring melt filled the ditches to their brim and spilling over onto the roads. When I arrived it was already 41 degrees, but by the time I left early this afternoon it was 52 degrees.
I hiked to the river by nest 1 and when I arrived I saw beating wings above me and eagles greeting each other behind some branches which blocked a clear view. However, there was no doubt that I was seeing Daedee and Dancer mating for the sixth time in front of me this nesting season. Then Daedee (the female), flew back to the nest and laid back on her egg(s). Eagles lay 2 to 4 eggs. I would guess she has at least two eggs under her, but I keep holding out for triplets.
I left them and went to nest 2 where I found Judy on the nest incubating their eggs for day 20.
Then I moved on to nest 6. I could hear the geese from a half mile away. There were several fights across the ponds. When I arrived I looked up and photographed the geese fighting over nest boxes. The two dominant pairs snatched up the goose nesting boxes. They didn't stay in them, just tried them out. It is still a little early for nesting, but they are preparing for it, and that is a sure sign that spring is only days away.
I didn't expect a killdeer so soon, but one flew in right in front of me, but flew back off after he saw it was all sinking ice, not the marshy goods they like to pick through to find worms, snails, and other pond critters.
Then a male wood duck flew past me. That's the first one I have seen this spring. With good timing, too. The DNR just mounted a new wood duck house a mile up the road. Hope he finds it.
The nest 6 eagle was on the nest gobbling down a dark furry tubular animal. It looked like a black squirrel, or a small muskrat.
The mate, sat a hundred feet above chirping down to the eagle on the nest. This is day 5 incubation for them.
Nest 5 was sitting peacefully on their nest deep in the valley. Today was day 15 incubation for them.
Further up the road I shot pictures of a nest 3 eagle who was on their nest incubating. This is day 5 for them as well.
Nest 4 had an eagle on their nest too.
I tried to save some time to look for winter bugs for my new expanded edition of my Winter Bugs! book, but I found very few. When God opened that book for me it was easy to find the insects. Now I find myself struggling to find even a handful a day, maybe I'm just out of practice; maybe God's anointing isn't on this for me anymore.
Of course, if anyone knows, God knows, I'm as persistent as a bee gathering pollen, and I eventually found some snow fleas in the green moss and magnified them so their heads filled my frame. Then I found some Asian beetles, all frozen in a heap under snow that had melted off them. That's when I remembered, when I worked on my Winter Bugs! book, I spent a lot of time looking through my lens set-up, as good as any mini microscope, to find the insects as small as a grain of sand. I found 80% of them this way. I surmised that I was just out of practice, I'd forgotten my best tool--patience and staring at what appeared to be a motionless mini world.
I kept looking up and down old stumps, in fresh dug holes, on the surface of the bark, and in the cracks. That's where I found a buff-white, fuzzy cocoon that was about the size of my thumbnail. I turned on my flash and leaned in trying to get a good angle, and that's when the wind blew exposing the open end of the cocoon. I shot the picture anyways, even though that moth had long since emerged, it was still a winter home to other critters.
The bluffs were muddy and slick. I found myself constantly digging my heels into the wet mud to maintain my balance, get some foot hold while I crawled around looking for bugs. Somewhere along my journey I ended up in a patch of gooseberry bushes, thorny, dried plants that tore my hat off a few times as I crawled through it, but it paid off. When I looked down after gashing my hand on the thorns, I found a little fishing spider with big, menacing eyes peering back at me. His actual size is about the size of one of those eyes, or about a 1/4 inch. (photo above)
The day went too fast. Once again I found myself on the last frames of my digital film and pushing my journey to the last possible seconds to hike out and get back to Rochester. It takes almost 45-55 minutes, especially with the slick, muddy roads and now the water coming up over the roads in the low lying areas.
I'm looking forward to day 66.
See you on the journey--
Lisa
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment