Day 171, Friday, 6/27/08, Year Four Dancer & Daedee: Snow Falling on Eagles

Hello Eagle Friends,

Today we had a mixture of isolated thunderstorms, and brief periods of sunshine. It was high 70s when I arrived in the valley.

I found no activity on nest 7.


I hiked out to nest 1 and found Daniels Charlie on the north branch and D'ODEE in the nest watching him. I was there over 4 hours hoping to get some shots of one of the parents coming in with food. That didn't happen while I was there.

I did watch as Daniels courage increased throughout that span of time; enough so that he walked to the thin limb, and possibly, for the first time had the experience of cinching his talons around a branch. Moving to a limb offers an entirely new experience of learning to balance where before he would just stand on a flat surface of the thick north limb, or his nest.

Several times today as the winds picked up he turned and faced them and flapped his wings into them, and once, only once he actually lifted himself up off the limb and came back down.

That was the reason I wanted one of the parents to come in. I really thought after seeing him lift and face the open skies, that should they pass by with food, he would have followed.

I broke part of my trail back to the river. I'm going to need that trail once these eaglets fly. The closer to the river I went, the thicker and taller the stinging nettles grew.

Then I sat back at my north post, and watched the orioles, the red winged blackbirds, vireo's, robins, and of course, the eagles. There was a little baby vireo that spent that entire time with me flying around me, just inches away in the tall grasses. I should bring him a bread and honey sandwich tomorrow the birds love my snacks.

The storm brought three rain showers while I was there. I was glad to see Daniels return to the thick north limb and move closer to the nest as I left tonight. I barely had reached the White Wolf post when the winds broke through the valley sending
gusts strong enough to blow an unwary eaglet skyward.

It looked like the sun was going to come out during this last shower, so I stayed a little while in the downpour, hoping to get another chance at shooting a rainbow over the nest. I waited until the clouds simply rolled past the open sky and covered the sun.

At nest 2 I found an empty nest. I didn't hear or see Terry Gail.

I stopped at my old marsh project on my way to nest 6. I found a young buck with his antlers covered in velvet.
Then I noticed this killdeer throwing her wing in the air and I realized I must have been close to her nest as she was deliberately leading me away.

At nest 6 I only saw one of the twins. The other one must have been sitting behind the tree trunk on the other side of the nest.

At nest 5 the twins were batting each other, both trying to sit on the same spot on the limb ten feet up in their nest tree. It seemed like every time they both settled, one or the other would push the other causing them to fly back into the nest.

At nest 3 I could see Victory Bell up on the north side, and I could see one eaglet up on the south side of nest 4.

There were about 150 white pelicans all gathered in that marsh that had dried to only a few big puddles. I was barely past them when I started noticing hundreds of toads and frogs covering the gravel road. I drove slow and dodged them, I even stopped a few times to get the big bull frogs out of the road.

It was a beautiful day. When I got home Em came out as I was unloading, "Mom, did you see the rainbow?"
I smiled and thought, "Only in your eyes" but instead said, "No, mine didn't come tonight."
"We got to see one all across the Rochesterfest parade.

"I would have loved to have seen that, Em."
"Well mom, they might have taped it."

I'm looking forward to day 172.

See you on the journey--

Lisa