Monday, June 23, 2008

Day 167, Monday, 6/23/08, Year Four Dancer & Daedee: Snow Falling on Eagles













Hello Eagle Friends,

What a perfect day for watching the eagles! The skies were mostly sunny and the temperature was low high 70s through the evening. Em accompanied me today so I had a lot of giggles and questions, but mostly I enjoyed her wonderful company.

We found no activity on nest 7. Maybe the winds have ruffled up the sticks in the center of the nest, maybe a squirrel or raccoon has been digging inside it, but there is a little rise in the middle and it's not a bird.

The nest 2 eaglet, Terry Gail was back on her nest and was rooting through it for food.

I was surprised to find the Marsh 1a and 1b families. Marsh 1a has 3 goslings that are miniature versions of the adult, only their heights separate them, and the 1b family still has one gosling whose adult plumage is coming in quickly. He stayed right under his parents watch, maybe he saw what happened to his siblings.

At nest 6 we arrived while I saw Linda crossing the marsh with a fish in her talons. I pulled over to watch her bring the fish which looked like a long pike, or a gar, and dropped it off for her 8 week old twins, Freedom and Soar.

We found another painted turtle crossing the road, but this one was making good time, so he didn't need our help moving him to the side.

Unfortunately we were too late for a snake, another unknown, this one looked more like a northern water snake but I just can't be certain when these snakes are juveniles they look nothing like the ones in my field guides. I moved him off the road so whatever animal or bird finds him (which was right where Dick likes to sit, the nest 6 male eagle), won't have to risk being hit from a passing vehicle too.

At nest 5, we found both of the 11 week old twins still perched on the nest, and no appearing to be in any hurry to leave.


At nest 3, Victory Bell was perched on the south side of his nest. I couldn't see much going on at nest 4, other than the egrets and great blue herons perched in the trees.

Em and I found 5 bull frogs, 3 males circling the 2 females in the ten to twelve foot circle, in the three foot deep ditch water.
Em wants a bull frog, but they are tricky frogs to catch, better to raise them up from tadpoles. That will be one of the critters we add to our new pond-in-progress at home.

Em found a huge spider web, with no spider. Sadly, little beetles, crane flies, flies had all been caught in its sticky silk. Em begged me to get them out. I told her, "Well, I wouldn't do this if there was a spider on there--that's his food."

I have to admit there was a small reward in setting free the captives of that web. You never know how many lives will be created from those few, but the look in their little eyes--all thousands of them--said thank you in a way words can't express.

On my second stop at nest 2, Terry Gail had left the nest again. This is nothing new. They do that. They come and go off their nest for months if allowed by the parents.

At least through the fall. I would highly suspect the parents are bringing food back to the nest for her. I just wish I saw more of a relationship with her.

Daedee and Dancer seem to spend more time with their eaglets than any other eagles of the study. Maybe that is how they were raised.

We finished our day at nest 1, staying until the coyotes and owls began their night calls. The eaglets are doing really well. D'ODEE Brian Michael made it to the west perch today. Just as I have seen these past couple years with the twins, they start with only one of them on the west perch, taking turns, but by the end of this week they will have figured out how both can sit together on it.

By this time next week they will have tried the north limb. I'd bet a turtle on it.

Daedee or Dancer kept flying by and causing the eaglets to cry out, and D'ODEE jumped back into the nest. This is also the time where the parents start flying past them with food, but don't come in. They are training them--while still on the nest to keep watch of them and where they lead them which will be crucial to their survival when they leave the nest.

Before they leave the nest they must learn to follow with their eyes, and know when to follow.

It was a great day in the valley.

I'm looking forward to day 168.

See you on the journey--

Lisa

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