For today’s completely mundane post, a bald eagle just flew directly over my head, above the tops of the tall cedars and being escorted out of the airspace by three or four crows. It had a dead animal, probably a squirrel, gripped in its talons.
Having caught breakfast, Creamsicle should be safe enough when she goes outside. The SO said, ‘Too bad it wasn’t a raccoon.’ She says the raccoons back in Tennessee were cute. She says the ones we have up here are too huge to be cute.
Rock on!
I had 5 baby wrens yesterday hopping along behind their mama as she found bugs for them.
Beware of tortoises.
Here’s a link to a webcam of a bald eagle’s nest WITH BABIES!!!
I wonder if the eagle might have “stolen” the dead squirrel from the crows, thus the escort. Our national bird is as much a scavenger as a hunter and has a reputation for being a bully.
I doubt it. The crows are very territorial, and I’ve seen some carrying nesting materials into a tree next door. I think they’re just getting rid of an intruder.
I was just outside again, and another bald eagle – nothing in its talons – flew over the same path, chased by crows.
I was shooting some test footage in the Aaton last week. There’s a little ‘park’ near the house. As I was walking back to the car, camera in hand, a guy working in his yard asked, ‘Looking for eagles?’ There’s a well-known nest here, and apparently we get a lot of tourists looking for it. I’ve lived here over a dozen years, and I’ve never looked for it. This seems to be a popular place for bird watchers. Great blue herons occasionally perch in a tree next door. They’re all right. Maybe not great blue herons, but pretty good blue herons anyway.
We had a downy woodpecker in the back yard for the first time the other day. We see eagles here quite often, as we are close to a wildlife preserve.
Here on the Upper Mississippi River bald eagles are fairly common - one year after the ice melted in the backwaters I saw > 25 eagles grabbing all the dead fish.
Still cool to see them - Seeing one in a tree on my block was neat, and the above experience was cool.
Brian
Oh, yeah. Loads of eagles up here. So many that the SO worries about letting Creamsicle outside when they’re out. But I don’t spend a whole lot of time in the back yard, so I rarely have two flying low directly over my head in one day.
Their nest is only a block or two away from here. I really should go see it sometime.
Growing up in West Central Wisconsin an eagle sighting would be something you’d tell people about. Now they are so common that I usually don’t even stop and look. In the winter you can find them by the dozens in areas of the Mississippi that have open water. Their recovery has been such a success story. I could only hope that the Whooping Crane and California Condor had such a dramatic improvement in numbers.
