Hello Eagle Friends,
Happy Mother's Day to all you mom's. It was a gorgeous Mother's Day. It was mostly sunny and 56 degrees when we reached the valley this afternoon, but extremely windy. I like a good brisk wind.
I found no activity at nest 7 or 8.
I hiked out to Daedee and Dancer's nest. I found Dancer up with the boys, and later he flew off. There were several turkey vultures diving in and around the nest while I was out there. One came in so close above me, all I got for a shot was four flight feathers filling the viewfinder.
Dancer let out his vocalizations, which eventually brought Daedee back in to the nest and Dancer flew off to fight with a hawk.
I was so busy watching D'ODEE Brian Michael's expressions I saw him literally open his mouth and his eyes grew wide and I thought Daedee was coming in behind me, but he ducked as she landed from the other side of the nest.
The shots above show a tender moment of their relationship. Daedee didn't feed the eaglet for the extra half hour I was there.
She watched the vultures the entire time.
The one shot is taken with about a 3400mm set up, a little grainy, but something I'm experimenting with. I haven't seen both eaglet up at the same time in a couple days. I hope I will tomorrow. The eaglets are growing so fast and I only have another week to two weeks to get some of these "teddy bear" eaglet shots.
We are only two to three weeks from watching them practice their flight jumps. Then the stick dances. The weather is supposed to be nice this next few days so I'm gearing up for some quality time at the nests.
At nest 2 The Mayor was sitting above the nest. 36 day old Terry Gail was down in the nest and not making any appearances for a photographer with a short time slot for picture taking today.
Up on the first marsh we found the two Canada goose families and their two guard geese that alarm the families at the approach of, well, anyone. I was glad to see the families have kept their goslings in order for the first time since they have hatched. The first family still had their 5, and the mom is banded on both legs. The second family was hanging back further
with their four.
I watched the goslings taking turns nibbling on a grass blade that towered over their eight to ten inch height.
At nest 6 I found the twins taking turns stretching their long gray downy wings against their mom or dad that was packed in the nest. They already looked like a tightly packed group of eagles, I don't know how they'll have room to grow in the nest that seems a few feet short of comfort.
Below them I found the goose mound 1, and nest box 1 Canada geese families milling about on the back bank of the marsh.
Good news! We have another hatching. Goose mound 2 hatched. I saw only one little gosling peeking out from mom's partially outstretched wing. I am guessing that see is waiting for the others to hatch before they leave the mound.
That's what I have observed in the past. Like from the nest boxes, the first one born has a long wait to try the waters below.
Nest mound 3 should be hatching by Wednesday. We couldn't find nest box 5 family today. They were probably in the reeds somewhere.
Moving on to nest 5 we stopped and I shot day 28 of the controlled burn area. There was only a solo white pelican swimming along the back marsh. It seemed odd to see a loner. There was zero activity on nest 5. I would think it was an empty nest if I didn't know better. Those eaglets sleep more than any of the eaglets in the valley.
I picked a few flowers for our craft for tonight that I wanted to make with my 92 year old grandma, and 90 year old
grandfather. Some memories to give my daughter of making the flower crafts with her great grandparents.
We moved on to nest 3 and found one of the parents on the nest feeding from the north side. It looked like both eagles were up on nest 4.
I found the goose pair, I'm pretty sure it is the one with the solo gosling. They were laying in their usual resting spot, and the male has a little rust color to his feathers (see the photos on the blog from yesterday or the day before). They had no gosling today, if it was even them.
I didn't find the controlled burn goose box family. We'll see what tomorrow offers for opportunities. I was shooting a few hours later today, and that makes all the difference in who is where, and at what time. That's part of the fun of shooting the same wildlife families each day, you learn their routines, their paths, their schedules and adapt yours to experience their
behaviors.
We finished up and I noticed another morel mushroom boutique had gone up since our arrival in the valley earlier today.
I don't know who to buy my mushrooms from, the north side or the south side of the town of 214 people.
We went to Kentucky Fried Chicken as we promised we would pick that up for my grandparents, for our Mother's Day dinner.
We ordered and when they asked what two sides we wanted Dave ordered and the order taker said, "Sorry we are out of the baked beans, unless, you want to wait about 10-15 minutes."
Dave ordered potato salad instead, and I hoped my grandpa would approve. No one makes potato salad as good as him.
Then I told Dave to order some desserts for everyone. I don't there is just something silly about the way the order taker said, "mmm" that does sound good", when we ordered our parfait desserts for everyone that made me want to send them back.
I didn't have to. We drove all the way to the other side of Rochester only to discover, "Mmm," he must have thought they sounded good--because all we got was the silverware and napkins. It wasn't worth the drive to go all the way back when
dinner was late anyways.
After dinner we cleared the table and we made our wall hangings. Em and grandma had a good time pressing the flowers into the dough. I had my grandpa make one too. He seems to enjoy making an occasional craft. I told him he could give that to mom, (his daughter) when she got back. She'd really think that was special.
The phone rang, and mom called from North Carolina and I wished her a Happy Mother's Day. She told me poppa had been looking forward to us coming over all week.
As we left, he took my hand and gave it a gentle squeeze and he must have thanked us a thousand times for coming over and having grandma make those crafts, "She really seemed to enjoy that Lisa. You'll have to do it again."
"And again." I replied.
Make your memories as quickly you can for they are like newborn eaglets who are covered in white down today, grey down tomorrow, feathered next time, and flown to bigger skies before you had a chance to write it all down; and almost always before you are ready to say good-bye.
I thank God for all my mom's, my sisters, my daughter's, aunts, grandma's and of course my favorite feathered mother, Daedee the mother of all eagles and all the mom eagles.
I'm looking forward to day 125.
See you on the journey--
Lisa
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment