I woke up this morning, intending to drive to Lethbridge to visit my Aunties, but there’s some snow and a great deal of blow!  So, I decided to cook a huge feast of a breakfast for two of my adult children and to hang out, cozy, with them.  Afterwards, Max needed to get his exercise, so he and I headed out in the car and steered our boat to the river. We just returned and are warming up.  It was a dramatically different scene from just yesterday when the sky was blue and the earth revealed the decay that is always so familiar in the autumn.  Indeed, apart from a skiff of snow on Christmas Day, everything was brown this year.

I have enjoyed the holiday because it has given me time to walk the river’s edge in daylight and observe the activities at the Bow.  I have been watching the male and female Bald Eagles build up the railings on their nest.  My photos are taken a great distance away and so I have no real concerns that posting these will tease out the weirdos who exist in the world to hurt and interfere with nature.

Setting geese and ducks to flight while doing a reconnaissance.

Keeping eye on a fly-fishing dude.

I Saw a Heart in the Tree

Male Bald Eagle, delivering new railing material.

Today was such a contrast to the past couple of weeks!  I pulled out my camera from under my coat in order to snap a quick photograph of a young raptor before he became aware of Max and I and took flight.  I had a chance to really get a good look and, according to information on line, with so much mottling, this is likely a sub-adult of maybe two or three years of age from the same parents that I’ve been watching for about four years.  I got a good look at him when he took flight.  Interestingly enough, he returned to a tree just a short distance from the nest, so I have a feeling he was, in all of this cold blustery wind, seeking out the warmth of home.  Thing is, if Mom and Dad return at some point this afternoon, they’ll be their usual ‘hard ass’ variety of parents and aggressively send him on his way.  That sort of makes me sad. I know he’s just wanting a taste of a nice fish or something.  Here are my photos…very out of focus, so I wish you had been there.

I’m now seeking permission to include a photograph posted on A Guide To Aging Bald Eagles by a photographer named Ron Dudley who has a very clear photograph of a Bald Eagle, classified as an Intermediate Adult.  I think that this is what I saw today.  I’d like to begin using the proper vocabulary.  So, stay tuned, but in the meantime, my readers might want to go to this website for clarity.

With gratitude to photographer and amazing birder, Ron Dudley, I was given permission to publish this screen shot.  As I experienced this Intermediate Adult today, this is what I saw when he/she was closer to me.