Hello Eagle Friends,
Today I met up with the valley of the eagles in the afternoon. I wanted to hike out and watch the sunset on nest 3 and get shots of the eaglet as the sun poured its last splashes of light across their nest.
I found no activity on nest 7.
When I arrived at my main eagle nest post at nest 1, I found Daedee sitting off in the north looking back at her twins, and D'ODEE Brian Michael peering down at me.
His feathers have grown another inch since yesterday, and I wonder how long he'll have his mohawk. He cocked his head and watched me photographing him and I'm just amazed at how much the eaglets observe their surroundings and the sounds in it.
I looked over to the robin nest and I saw a baby robin head with a bright orange and yellow beak flailing back and forth, opening and closing its mouth.
I walked over to observe how these babies survived another night, and amazingly, all were doubled in size since yesterday, and were doing well. Gloria let out an alarm and flew down by in a sapling. I took a shot and left.
The babies are too small to even make a peep when they lift their heads, but that will change this week. Mom flew in by the nest and all head shot up. The babies eyes will open up in a couple more days. For now, however, they must use their acute hearing to determine if it's mom or an intruder. Which makes me wonder if the reason they make no peeps until their eyes open, is something God himself invented for their own protection.
I moved on to nest 2 and found 48 day old Terry Gail tossing grasses up, doing a little spring cleaning of the nest. Her mom's fastiduous cleaning has obviously rubbed off on her eaglet.
I was going to leave when my eye caught a black ball in the sky falling like a rock from atop a bluff. Then I realized it was Judy and she had her wings pulled in close for maximum speed and then her feet shot out with a snake or turkey head and neck cinched in her talons. It was bloody or it was red feathers, frankly, I couldn't tell which it was. It was long, about four feet, so I'm leaning towards it being a snake. Maybe even a rattle snake considering she just dropped off a southwest facing bluff off the shale where they are.
I am beginning to wonder where the Marsh 1a and 1b families have gone. Perhaps, I'll have to hike behind the marshes and see if I find them there.
At nest 6 Linda was laying in the nest in a brooding position. I haven't seen that in a few weeks with her, so I was surprised to see her eaglets under her.
Only a few turtles, a couple pair of red-winged blackbirds, and a handful of passing dragonflies could assure me I was on the marsh that held at least a hundred geese, and a couple dozen ducks a few days ago.
When I looked around for any wildlife I found none. Almost all the creatures great and small, seemed to have moved elsewhere, perhaps to a back oxbow but where ever the wetland life I've come to know so well had gone, it was, undoubtably, somewhere out of sight. Only the wind moved stirred the marsh, and left ripples in the grasses.
I moved on to nest 5 and found Poppa, the male red-winged blackbird at his post over the nest and east side of the marsh, his 100 sq. feet. I walked over to their nest and peered down into it. It appears their family, this clutch is complete then with their 3 eggs. 5 days already under their belt, and before we think on it we'll have little ones gaping at the air for a tasty dragonfly nymph, or tent caterpillar.
I found the first tent caterpillar nest today. It was jam-packed with squirming little colored caterpillars. In my experience, two to five will survive out of that entire nest. I've documented these for four years. That's all that makes it. The bot flies will swarm them and eat them alive, as do the ants. Or a wasp will come along and lay her eggs inside and they will hatch and eat the caterpillar inside out. So in my humble opinion, a bird snatching up and eating a caterpillar is much more humane than what the insects will do to the caterpillar should it escape the eyes of a bird.
The twins were up on nest 5 flapping about but it's almost impossible to see them anymore.
I moved on to nest 3 and 4 and stopped to photograph a great blue heron perched in a tree. That seems to be this birds new perch for I have seen it there the last two days late in the afternoons.
I shot pictures of nest 4 but what is the use? It's buried under the leaves now. Nest 3 is still visible at a half mile distance. I hiked out to nest 3. On my way, a beaver slapped it's tail on the water surface and dove under the thick two inch green algae which is covering the entire marsh. There are channels through it where even the adult geese appear to get stuck or tangled in the lily pads and water lotus.
Then I heard a squak and thirteen newly hatched wood duck ducklings stood up on the water and ran. They could, too, because there was so much scum on the water. The mother seemed to realize when I stopped moving I was of no threat. I waited until she and her little ones scrambled into the thick grasses before moving on.
It took me almost a half hour to get to the eagle nest. These eagles don't know me anymore, if they ever did, during that short documentary I did with their eaglet Tookie in 2005. The nest was so small compared to their other nest that collapsed, but they have built it jutting out to the south, which I wonder if they did this because their other nest jutted to the north. Maybe they thought they should try it the other way?
There on top of their well-crafted nest, in a stronger tree, was their long-awaited eaglet. Mom was sitting to the left on the tree, and he sat tall, and looked so regal that his new name fit him as perfectly as he perched.
I sat for an hour and a half watching the golden sun filtering through the stand of saplings, spilling across his nest. The shot I wanted was the sun rushing across his face lighting up his eyes.
Then the sun cast a yellow ball of light on one of the two thick trunks which his nest is secured in. Like a kitten chasing a shadow, this eaglet leaned over and tapped at the trunk where the yellow sun cast it's light.
I had my shot. In fact, I took several. I whispered loud enough that the mother, eagle could hear, and the father eagle flying overhead could hear, and the young buck feeding on the tree limb a hundred feet away could hear when I spoke, "Victory Bell" is your name.
The deer walked towards me into the light and I tilted my camera lens back and forth because I know that makes them curious. The deer came about twenty feet away and stomped it's foot. The mother eagle called out over and over, but then the deer doesn't always listen to the eagle.
She kept trying to tell the deer that it should run. Still the deer walked towards me. Then the eagle flew down just inches above the deers head as a final warning to the deer, but still, the deer walked towards me.
The eagle perched calling out and calling, but the deer walked towards me. I just kept shooting its picture, that look of curiousity and fearless innocence.
When it was just about ten feet from me I made a "WSSP.WSSP." noise. The deer responded back the same but bolted twenty feet back. This regal little buck walked all around me snorting until I left on the last moments of the day.
I'm going to donate a print of Victory Bell to the school to have and keep. Then every time they look at that regal eaglet, they'll be reminded of the name they carefully chose, and remember the story of a pair of eagles who endured much, lost much, waited patiently for a long time but how God was faithful and in the spring of 2008, their long wait was over when Victory Bell, sounded his borning cry announcing his presence for a bright future for Edward and Elaina.
While I shot my last images on my flash card I couldn't help but feel Tookie's presence. The sibling Victory Bell would never know about if I didn't share his life in words and thoughts.
His life ended abruptly, nothing was fair about it. Nothing was right and it has carved a deep hole in my heart, but I promised that eaglet I would make his life known, I would find a way to make his life worth counting. Now, four seasons later, because of his death; his brother and future brothers and sisters will be raised up in a stronger tree, built with sticks of labor and love.
I'm looking forward to day 138.
See you on the journey--
Lisa
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