Saturday, August 16, 2008

This is a juvenile Bald Eagle that I was amazingly lucky to see. It’s not a great pic but, hey, it’s the first time I’ve ever seen an eagle in the wild and I am way too psyched to let picture quality stop me from posting this. I took this shot this past Wednesday morning on Carmans River. I was watching two Ospreys flying past me when they stirred this guy from his perch. Otherwise I might not have seen him at all. Next to the Ospreys I could see that he was HUGE. Humongous. I see Red-tailed Hawks and Ospreys all the time and this bird was an order of magnitude larger than either of those birds. I knew I had to at least try to get a shot so I turned my yak around and paddled in the direction that my oversized friend had flown. How conceited am I to think I could chase down an eagle in my kayak? But I did. Well, he was waiting for me. He flew off again before I could get a shot of him perching but I was able to snap a couple quick shots of him airborne.

I was going to post on Monday but I just couldn’t sit on this. The only reason I waited this long before posting was because I wanted someone else to tell me what I was seeing. I couldn’t trust my eyes. It was too cool to believe, if you know what I mean. Just four days earlier I had seen a juvenile Bald Eagle that Sweetbriar Nature Center is rehabbing so I thought I might have eagles on the brain.

I want to thank Eric from Your Connection To Nature for making the identification for me. I had sent this pic out to several of my nature buff friends asking, “Is this an eagle?” My friend John replied, “That ain’t no sparrow!” While that helped to narrow it down for me, Eric was able to make a more precise identification. Thanks guys. JK