Hello Eagle Friends,
Today it rained.
It was 50 degrees when I arrived in the valley, and 51 degrees when I left this afternoon in the downpour. Still, rain or shine, it was a day of exceptional experiences limited only by curiosity and desires to explore further into the marshes of the valley and the treasures hidden there.
I found no activity on nest 7 or 8, and I wonder if maybe, perhaps, those could be winter feeding platforms? It's just a guess, but something to watch for this late fall when the eagles fly deeper into the wild while the hunters shoot up their nest area for their parties limit on bucks and does.
I hiked out and sat at nest 2 for an hour. Judy was on her north tree perch. The most I saw of 34 day old Terry Gail was a left wing, then the right stretching up in the rain, but never so much as a fuzzy gray head. The Mayor flew in about a half hour later and stopped on the nest, but flew off again.
I moved on to the marsh with the geese, but found none. The mom's probably had their little ones up on a bank somewhere
covering them in the rain.
Further down my outdoor path I came upon hundreds of bluebells, dandelions, little white flowers, purple violets, yellow flowers and not a single morel mushroom. I stopped to photograph the flowers, and I'll stop again and again as I find new blooms. Can anyone really ever have enough photos of the colors and beauty of spring?
At nest 6 Linda was up on the nest with her twins. It's becoming harder and harder to see her in the foliage. I couldn't find any goslings on their marsh either. The geese on mounds 2 and 3 were still sitting. I believe we have a hatching at mound 2. Mom had her wings in a brood position. Today was 32 days.
I packed up to head to nest 5 when I saw two eagles taking swipes at each other coming fast over the bluff and diving down towards me. I only had a chance to grab solo shots of each bird, and the one blurry shot above of Dick, the nest 6 male going after his 2007 eaglet, Badger who was doing his "bait dad but dive to the nest with mom" trick. He almost made it. Linda was letting out horrific vocalizations and somehow Dick raced ahead and under Badger, cutting off his flight plan.
Badger, no fool, flew up the bluff, circled and did his drop from the top of the bluff back, but Dick must have known his game by now and was waiting on another perch, not his usual one and cut him off again.
That was enough for Badger. A moment later he was out chasing the red-tailed hawk of the nest area.
I moved on to find a rose-breasted grosbeak male eating the buds of tree, stretching his short neck across to reach another branch. The buds were greener on that one.
Then I found the pair of sandhill cranes nibbling up minnows or something in the small creek that runs parallel to the river.
The shot I wanted never materialized, was them walking through the bluebells. Instead they turned five feet short of them and headed east for the afternoon.
Nothing new at nest 5. Mom was on her above the nest perch and the twins at 5 weeks and 33 days were out of sight.
I did find a mother goose laying in the grass with her little ones peeking out from under her feathers. The shot above is my favorite. The rain was lightly coming down and the goslings felt the need to be undercover.
Up at nest 3 one of the parents were feeding an eaglet. Nest 4 is almost impossible to even see, other than a speck of a white head which is still visible.
I did find the one gosling still swimming with his mom, who must have a broken wing feather as it was still bent up since yesterday and dad trailed closely behind. In front of them, the controlled burn nest box goose family. They were down 4 goslings since yesterday when I counted and photographed ten.
I don't see any other geese with goslings out there, so I fear the four were eaten, not adopted by a new mom and dad.
I hiked around to the back of the marsh and kept seeing this black shadow running along side me in the swampy, slough beside me. I had no idea what it was. It ran as fast as I was walking, which was not that fast.
Finally, the shadow stopped and peaked out behind some foliage. It was some pheasant sized bird, with a long orange beak,
and it had feathers like a black duck hen, but when it stepped out it looked and ran like a road runner. I did some research looking up wading birds, wetland birds, Minnesota birds, and finally found out it is a virginia rail.
As I drove my route back I found the nest box 1 and mound 1 geese families. Both with their same head counts of goslings. That amazed me that they have not lost any yet, but nest box 1 had five and mound 1 had 6.
At the first marsh I know found both goose families swimming up on the edge of the marsh. The two families have formed their own little colony who appear to be sharing their goslings as equally as possible with nine remaining goslings. The 6 pack family gave one up and now has five, and the other family has the four. We'll see what tomorrow brings.
Judy was on her nest brooding Terry Gail on my second pass.
I hiked out to Daedee and Dancer's and found Daedee sitting in the light rain on her Look Out Tree perch. She had her back turned to me and was watching the river, which usually indicates Dancer is down there, but not always. She turned her head back and watched me sit down and then went back to watching the river.
D'ODEE Brian Michael was sitting up in the rain crying out little chirps. The eaglets are big enough now to be left in the light rain. I could see through the stick openings on the nest that he was eating the buds off the branches.
I moved to my north post and sat down, barely getting my video camera out of the bag when I heard "Ca-ca-ca" soft chirps and I knew that meant Dancer was coming in. I flipped it to record and aimed at the nest just in time to get him landing with his fish and filmed D'ODEE popping up like a jack-in-a-box almost with a zealous "What'd you get dad" excitement.
I shot a handful of images of Dancer looking a D'ODEE, such as the shot above. Dancer offered a few bites, but he quickly jumped off the nest and onto the west perch as two eagles came racing in by the nest. He and Daedee vocalized back and forth, and then the eagles left. I wondered if they followed him again?
Daedee came in to brood over the eaglets. The feeding would have to wait until after the downpour subsided.
It was a great day. I came home and Em was all upset that Dave wouldn't buy a teddy bear for me for Mother's Day.
"You would have wanted that, right mom?"
"Of course. I would have loved a teddy bear to go with all my other ones you have of mine."
"See, I told you dad."
"Em you just wanted that teddy bear for yourself."
"No. I wanted it for mom."
"Well, maybe you could both go back and get it for me tomorrow? Then we could share it Em."
"That's what I was thinking. You could have it for Mother's Day, and I could have it the next day. We'd share it."
Tonight we picked out cards for the mom's and I told Em to pick out some little puppies or ponies animals she wanted. That would be the best Mother's Day gift I could have.
I'm looking forward to Day 124.
See you on the journey--
Lisa
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