Hello Eagle Friends,
Weather-wise we had another cool morning. However, by afternoon the sun was out
and the temperature climbed into the high 60s. At no point was there a lack of subjects.
I started the day with a field trip to Quarry Hill. The kids had a great time looking at snails, tadpoles, eggs of a toad, dragonfly larvae, turtles and gosling's. We dug for fossils and we didn't leave until every child had one to take home. Most had several of them.
I took them on a bear hunt by the close cave, and then we made up a silly song about the entire day. Every stop became a new verse and I think they did an excellent job.
In fact, a couple of the girls have a promising future in songwriting if they want to pursue those gifts.
After a wonderful day and a new collection of memories, Em and me headed down to the valley to do the eagle project. I wasn't sure if she'd be too tired, but she wanted to come with.
Nest 7 had no activity. By the time we reached nest 1 one of Em's shoes had disappeared. I couldn't find it anywhere in the truck. Luckily, I keep everything but a spare refrigerator in my trunk so I pulled out her old pair of shoes to wear.
She found a new pet slug. I finally had to ask her, "What do you like about those slugs?"
"I just think they are cute."
I guess in their own way--they are.
Daniels Charlie was sitting by Daedee when we arrived. I didn't hear anything of the robins which seemed oddly, quiet. Looking back these past days, I don't know if there has been a day where the parents haven't come over upon my arrival, with their constant watch and chirping, usually muffled, projecting through a beak full of worms. I took a short walk that I knew I was going to regret.
I have learned to hear the silence, and the answers that are found in it.
The path to their nest was now widened to three feet and all the nettles protecting the nest could not keep the babies safe, any more than their parents. As I examined the empty nest I began looking for answers in the trampled grasses, searching for even one hair of the intruder, one feather of a parent, or one baby who may have escaped.
I walked back to my eagle post sitting, straining to hear a chirp of Gloria or Donald, but, my heart was as empty as that nest when I looked over the short distance to what had been a rare glimpse into the lives of robins.
I knew from experience those little robins hardly had a chance for survival with their nest only a couple feet off the ground, but I thought the parents had done a wonderful job keeping the nest clean and the babies silenced. In their dedication, I believed they had a small chance.
I had this same experience last year with a pair of morning doves who built their nest on the low branches.
I have no idea what would make a path so wide, other than a bear. A coyote would be
my first suspect, but a coyote doesn't trample down a wide path, unless, it ate and bedded down for the night. I crossed paths with a bear out there last year. I have not seen him since the big flood.
Dancer flew in with a fish and Em has never had that honor of having an eagle fly right over your head with a fish. "Don't look up, and cover your head," was my only advise.
The screams of the hungry eaglets begging to be fed could be heard all the way into the next ravine. You'd think it was prime rib night from their anticipation of this meal. From what I have learned, fish, really aren't the preferred food.
D'ODEE Brian Michael sat up next to Daedee and I find his expressions coming out of his developing personality something I look forward to documenting every day.
We hiked out and moved on to nest 2. Dead silence there. Not even a stick getting thrown over the edge in a late afternoon cleaning.
At nest 6 I stopped and Em wanted to do some shots in the dandelions. I think the shots I took tonight go far beyond what I had hoped to accomplish when I waited as she gathered up the dandelions.
As I was shooting her pictures, Dick, the nest 6 male came flying in hauling a 4-6 pound chunk of a red horse fish for his 5 week old twins, Soar and Freedom.
I saw Don Anderson from Rochester up the road, so I pulled over to say hello.
"What are shooting today, Don?"
"Warblers again."
It's good to have photographers who you can talk with and share wildlife "hits and misses" with our lenses, photographers aren't like fisherman, we know we can't get away with fish tales--so we have to be straight-shooters for our stories.
Up the road we found a doe in the marsh with a fawn that was in the grasses, but too short to be photographed. The twins were up on nest 5 and I shot a couple pictures of them in the last light of the day.
At nest 3 I saw Victory Bell sitting out on the south side of his nest, watching the sunset just like the other night when I sat with him, sharing the same sunset.
I couldn't see nest 4, only a few inches of sticks.
As we headed back to the truck I noticed a springtail hatching on my truck. I barely had a second to focus and he slid right out of his overly tight, grey skin and without even a flip of his wings he shot into the air with so much precision that the Blue Angels would have been impressed.
Then we noticed the other 20 hatching on my truck. I have no idea how or when all these springtail's had time to crawl out of a pond, and which one I'll never know, and
crawl all over my truck to hatch.
I took Em over to see the water lotus and noticed a green inch worm, "centimetering" along. I've never seen a caterpillar move so slow.
We then packed up our stuff and called it a day. Then a day never really does end for me. I noticed two does, one with a fawn approaching each other in the tall grass, only I got the impression neither deer knew the other was ahead.
When they met head on they stood up on each other kicking their hoofs up in a sumi-wrestle stance. Then they jumped down, and quietly walked in two different directions.
The deer were out on every bend of the road as I drove through the valley. At dusk on the blind curves if I see a deer crossing the road I stop or slow down, trusting there may be two, then watch for a fawn trailing slowly behind mom.
It's that time of year where I find a dead fawn every week who couldn't follow the leader fast enough; and ran out of time leaping across an asphalt grave while staring at the white in his mother's tail.
I thank God for this wonderful day.
I'm looking forward to day 142.
See you on the journey--
Lisa
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