Hello Eagle Friends,
Here it is almost dusk and for the first time in over a week I'm back in Rochester before the sun sets. There is another severe
storm heading this way with 60 MPH winds and damaging hail. You'd think this was July, not the last day of May.
Em went with me today and we found an injured female tiger swallowtail in the road. She is recouping now with my homemade
brew of sugar nectar. I think our other injured female black swallowtail is enjoying her new companion for she climbed on her back and waited to fly.
Even after a week the first butterfly is not able to fly. I don't understand why she can't fly as her wings aren't bent or broken, she has no visible signs of injury and she can flutters but plummets to the ground when she attempts to fly.
The twins, Freedom and Soar, were sitting up at and in full view on nest 6 when we arrived. Linda brought in some food for the
eaglets and headed over to the big pond where I photographed her again fishing above a kingbird who was watching from a sapling over the slough by the pond.
At nest 5 the eaglets were stirring about and we found a 3 foot long garter snake that was fun to observe.
Nest 3 eaglet, our Victory Bell, was being fed by mom or dad when we arrived and I watched a red-winged blackbird female
weaving her nest on the marsh edge while a dragonfly darting to and fro in front of me. Try manually focusing on a moving dragonfly zipping zigways and zagways and you'll get some practice in guesstimating the focal distance.
At nest 2 we found 7 week old Terry Gail pulling apart a fish, slurping up the innards like noodles. I didn't see The Mayor or Judy around her, but I trust one or the other was nearby.
As we were getting ready to hike out to nest 1 a rose-breasted grosbeak flew down in front of me and picked through the sand and gravel by a puddle. Em had never seen one of these beauties before, and she wanted to see my pictures. "Go back, now go forward--ah--put that one on your blog," she said excitedly.
When we reached our main post at nest 1 we found Daniels Charlie dozing off in the shadows of the nest. His little head would droop, then slowly drop down and fall to the side. D'ODEE was watching us from the west side of the nest. He still has his fancy feather crop, even after the rains and getting soaked.
We sat taking turns nabbing little flying beetles from the air. We called them fainting beetles as they would literally play dead for a moment after we caught them and then when we weren't looking they'd fly off again.
We found several red admiral caterpillars rolled in individual silk-tied leaves; barely as big as a speck but bigger than a "who."
Em wanted to gather more snails and slugs and I am convinced one day she'll do a documentary on them with cameras and video quality far better than I'll ever be able to afford.
As I drove out of the valley I noticed our day was ending just as it had started with a young lankly doe feeding, pausing to watch me shoot its picture.
We had been playing tag with the thunderstorm all day long but it never did catch up to us and I'm thankful, ever so thankful for another fun day to explore and teach Em all the reasons to take each grass blade and count it all joy.
I'm looking forward to day 145.
See you on the journey--
Lisa
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