Hello Eagle Friends,
Today it stormed. It kinda of went like this: rain, then no rain, a few flashes of lightening, and then the dead silence. The calm before the continuing storm. Then a downpour. However, it was 54 degrees when I arrived in the valley not bad for a rainy day. Somehow, (thank you God) I was able to dodge most of the rain.
I found no activity on nest 7 or 8. Both nests were hard to locate because of the dense fog rising on the bluffs.
I hiked out to nest 1 and found Daedee soaked with her feathers plastered back on her head. The twins were quiet and I'm sure
she was enjoying a momentary rest without them begging for food. Even at their young 19 days and 3 weeks of age, they are aggressive and will snap at their parents for food.
Dancer came in about an hour later, but without any food. He came in to watch over them and he did for the entire time I was there. Daedee went to the Look Out Tree to dry off and preen. Meanwhile, I was able to video tape the first eaglet spat. The two of them batted each other in the beak until one retreated.
Once Daedee dried and decided the rains had stopped for awhile, she flew back to the nest and began feeding the eaglets. She lets the eaglets fight off each other showing no preference for one or the other. She feeds who ever makes it there in front of her first. However, she never leaves without feeding both.
The eaglet grabbed at the guts of whatever she was feeding them. Then she leaned over and handed the eaglet a piece of red meat. The eaglet snapped it away from her. I stopped to look at the river and I noticed the Twin Tree was moved.
It went down in the storm last night. I mean literally down, dropped ten feet below into the river. I have been trying to figure out why we are loosing all our land when the river is so far away. The two floods last year and the wind storms have now taken four of their major perching trees, leaving only one, the Look Out Tree as a nearby perch. The twin tree is tilted, and could stay that way for another 20 years, but it won't.
Any future storm blowing 50-60 mph will claim it. The good news is that would create a bridge to the other side, but I would think the DNR would cut it down since people canoeing the river would not have a way around it.
I left and went to nest 2 where I found Judy and The Mayor up on the nest. The Mayor left shortly after Judy's arrival, but I didn't even get a glimpse of 26 day old Terry Gail today.
At nest 6, Linda was on the nest and Dick was perched by her. No doubt that box 1 has hatched. I still can't find the goslings or the parents. The other geese should be hatching out there little ones this weekend.
There were two great blue herons fishing in the rain. The male is a regular, and the new one was an immature heron, maybe only a year old, if even that.
I found the nest 5 eagle fishing his favorite haunt and the picture above reminds me of an eagle looking to the Heavens for guidance. He kept looking up, but I couldn't see anything there. I left asking myself if my faith is so blind that I didn't see anything.
The mate was above the nest perched looking down on the eaglet at nest 5. I shot the area images, like I do every day, and moved on.
Nest 3 and 4 eagles were sitting on their nests. There was an immature eagle close to me watching the marshes and nest 4.
Then as I was going to call it a day, I saw them, three tiny, baseball-sized, yellow goslings. The mom lead them into the dried grasses while the male shadowed her. I wondered all the way home why there were only three? They are in the most dangerous place of all the marshes.
There are no less than 6 eagles back there at any given time, and some of the largest snapping turtles I have ever seen live in those back oxbows and marshes. Little goslings make good turtle snacks, and I wonder if that is why she had only three?
I finished my project, got my gear loaded and started my vehicle. I know more than turned the key in the ignition when a thundering crack and a sudden downpour washed away all the seed matter from my hood. It poured the entire drive home.
We are supposed to get rained on all day tomorrow.
I'm looking forward to day 116.
See you on the journey--
Lisa
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