On Eagles’ Wings

A puffy grey fledgling balanced on the side of a giant tower, focusing its already keen eyes on a new environment. Hatched in Alaska, it had been brought to Monroe Lake near the IU Bloomington campus in Indiana. The year was 1985.

Eagles had been disappearing from the state for one hundred years. In the new century, their habitats were destroyed and new pesticides, particularly DDT, poisoned their food so that shells of their eggs were too thin to let the babies grow. In 1973, the year the Endangered Species Act was passed, there were only three eagle sightings recorded in Indiana.

But then – in 1983, a thorough proposal was made, the Indiana Nongame and Endangered Wildlife Program (you can see it online) to re-establish the eagle population. Two years later, 73 eaglets were brought from Alaska and Wisconsin, placed in a 25 ft. nest tower at Monroe Lake, and fed until they were 12 weeks old when they could fly.

In 1991 there were successful eagle nests at Monroe Lake and Cagles Mill Lake – the raptors don’t lay eggs until they are four years old – and by 1998 there were new nests in nearby counties of Tippecanoe, Posey and Brown.

Fast forward to 2021. Eagles are now off the Endangered List in Indiana, although they are still protected by state and federal laws. Last year there were 350 nest territories within our borders.

I’d heard people talk about spotting them, but l don’t know, maybe I was waiting for a time when one just happened by. The thing is, they need a river for their mostly-fish diet and we don’t have one in our back yard.

Last week a friend posted on Facebook about eagles she and her husband saw on Salamonie Lake, about an hour’s drive away. We also discovered that near the small town of Andrews there were some by the Little Wabash River. My husband and I needed to get out of the house, so we took a drive. Poking along a dirt road, I spotted what looked like a whirligig high on a branch. We backed up. There it was, the first eagle we had ever seen in Indiana.

My first Indiana eagle.

We watched it from the recommended football field distance (and it was probably watching us) until it flew away. Its wingspan was five or six feet. Then we moved down the road aways and saw two others resting on a small sandbar in the water, presumably waiting for a cold fish dinner.

The record for a Haliaeetus leucocephalus or bald eagle life length is 38 years; Eagle #C43 was spotted in 2018 in Monroe County at 30 years old. She was one of the eaglets from Whitestone Harbor, Alaska released in 1988.

The proposal which resulted in the re-introduction success cited a lot of education: posters, tours, AV programs in schools, press kits, displays at public boat launching sites, seminars, and films. I hope its writers and researchers have received due honors for bringing the national bird back to Indiana. It was well worth the effort.

Information from: my-indiana-home.com, fws.gov/midwest/eagle/recovery, in.gov/dnr

Backyard Biology

Great Kiskadee, Alamo, Texas.

The day after Christmas we went to the wild bird feed store and picked up a sack of our favorite mix.  Charlie, the cardinal, looked brilliant but lonely and hungry out by the fence in back, in the single digit temperatures, the frost and the snow.  I did some catching up on my favorite nature blog, Backyard Biology, by my friend Sue (whose photo of an American Redstart I was privileged to use on my first book cover three years ago).  She has shared her favorite non-Minnesota bird shots from the past year, also giving permission for me to share them with you.

 

Male Red-wing Blackbirds in Alamo, Texas.

Phainpepla, Tuscon, Arizona.

Gila Woodpeckers, Tucson, Arizona.

Magnificent Hummingbird, Santa Ridge Lodge, Arizona.

Cactus Wren, Tucson, Arizona.

Tri-colored Heron, Padre Island, Texas.

And my Painted Redstart, Portal, Arizona.

 

Happy New Year 2018 to feathered and non-feathered friends alike.  Let’s hear it for protected habitats in the year to come.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Saturday in the Park, Part 2

We were cautioned by a ranger in the road not to stop the car, but were allowed to slow it down.  Visible among the pine trees for a moment was a mother grizzly followed by two cubs, their silver fur glinting in the sun.  I had to blink to believe I really saw them.

Another animal I’d not seen before was the bighorn sheep.  We found some over by Roosevelt Lodge (Tower Falls), in the same area TR did in his visit in 1903.

Bison are beautiful.  The babies like to jump and dance in the evening.

Guess you’re never too young to play!

A raven drops in to see the black wolf the photographers are lined up for in Lamar Valley.

Iconic elk rest peacefully on ledges of iconic Mammoth Hot Springs.

After an expedition to Yellowstone in 1870 escorted by Captain Doane from Fort Ellis in Montana, members of Congress and President Ulysses S. Grant designated it as our first national park.  The people of the United States would now be able to experience nature in its pristine form, and look forward to their grandchildren doing the same.

In 1903 President Theodore Roosevelt made Pelican Island off the coast of Florida a national bird preserve, rapidly setting aside more than 230 million acres for national parks and monuments.  In 1906 the Antiquities Act which he and Chief Forester Gifford Pinchot plotted swiped treasure from under the noses of miners, loggers and developers before they could profit from it.  TR said the land could never be improved upon.

This Spring, the Antiquities Act is being tampered with.  Of course, they wouldn’t dare take away any land already preserved just to make someone richer.

Would they?

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Look at these websites for a discussion of recent actions on the Antiquities Act of 1906:

https://www.regulations.gov/document?D=DOI-2017-0002-0001

http://www.americanforests.org/blog/new-executive-order-antiquities-act-spell-disaster-fore

Saturday in the Park, Part 1

I wasn’t wishing it was the Fourth of July, because by then in Yellowstone National Park the landscape would be shades of brown and the animal life higher and out of view.  As it was, our trip during the second week of May to this famous natural ecosystem in Wyoming and Montana turned out to be a boom time to see and photograph big game animals.

 

 

At Mammoth Hot Springs we watched a group of elk, some drinking from a stream and some resting.

Hopefully their thick robes kept these bison warm enough in their crossing of the icy river.

 

The introduction of wolves to Lamar Valley has been controversial; their numbers have increased while the elk numbers have decreased.  Photographers line up en masse with powerful lenses on tripods.  I married my camera to a telescope and got a clearer view of two wolves working on a bison carcass.  An injured black wolf, possible an Alpha female, was causing a bit of commotion closer to the road.

Yellowstone Lake is still mostly frozen in May.  But deep underneath, seismic activity abounds and is closely monitored.

Almost to the Cooke City entrance on our way out of the park, we spotted these two young moose.

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Next time: “You may slow your car, but do not stop.  There are grizzlies ahead…”

Sunny

I love sunflowers.  I didn’t have much luck with them this summer, though.  Out of three packages of seeds, only five sprouts made it.  The birds, the rabbits, and the deer enjoyed them at different stages of growth.  I transplanted some to a new location.  But look at one of the plants today~

That just goes to show that you never know how things will turn out.  Keep trying.  Appreciate what you get.

A sunny picture for today.

Cache of Cannas

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The sun cooperated with the plans of two photographers on a late summer morning in Foster Park.  It stayed behind some clouds, reducing the chance that petals would blur under its gaze.  Magnificent canna lilies were center stage with only a few elephant ears competing for attention, while the rest of the foliage, content with climbing fenceposts or grazing the ground, remained in the background for the benefit of their taller brothers and sisters.  But these will only last a little while, and soon bulbs will be dug up to rest during the winter.  I will let the camera write the captions this time: it deserves most of the credit.

The Land of the Big Sky

The sky wraps southwestern Montana in a great hug.  You can see cumulus clouds in the rearview mirror at the same time the mountains frame the road ahead.

In back of a family farm, the scene changes from sun and shadow to rain and rainbow.  A creek rushes through the tall grass.  Not too far away at the shore where Lewis and Clark found three rivers coming together, stones they may have stepped on are visible through the clear, cold water.

Enjoy these pictures!  I hope you can see the Big Sky in person some day, too.

Many thanks to Jeff and Neal Krogstad for allowing me to photograph the scenery around their beautiful home.

The One That Got Away

You know the expressions “…rowing with oars out of the water…” and “…the lights are on but nobody’s home…”  Well, I have another one: “…taking pictures without a memory card.”

Yes, on a rainy day I brought my new camera to the most wonderfully landscaped park in town.  For weeks a friend and I had been planning to capture the tulips there when they bloomed.  I had responsibly thought, “I’ll take my old point-and-shoot just in case something happens to the battery in the new one.”  Hopping out of the car and enthusiastically angling in on the beautiful blooms, I’d taken several photographs when I decided to push the button and take a quick look at them.  Just a little reinforcement for the ego.

“No card,” Mr. Minolta said.

My heart sank.  But I put the point-and-shoot in one hand and my smart phone in the other, like a double-holstered cowboy, and kept firing.

 

 

 

 

I just know one of the ones I took with my Minolta with the aperture set on 5.6 before I discovered there was no memory card was the best flower pic ever.  But who would believe me?

I like the pictures I got.  And the first thing I did before starting this post was to take the Minolta card out of the computer and put it back where it belongs.

Spring Encore

Cast of this show, in order of appearance: hyacinth, daffodil, and tulip.  The final performers appeared after a lengthy intermission of frost and snowfall, but were worth waiting for.  Thank you, thank you very much.

 

 

 

 

 

Rain reflects a flower’s beauty even more.

Watch the Birdie

One of our tree sparrows.

When I was little I remember  a photographer saying, “Watch the birdie!” as we sat for a family portrait.  I don’t remember what we were looking at.  But lately I’ve been watching the real birdies fly down to our suet cakes with the intention of using my new camera to freeze them in time.

Before last week we had a wire cage that hung from a swing arm on the deck (see top photo).  When the squirrels unlatched it and dumped the food, I said, “This’ll fix them!” as I tied it with string.  Apparently that night they said to each other, “This’ll fix her!” as they carried it between them like a washtub full of summer watermelons across the yard and out to the woods.  I haven’t found it yet.

So I put the pieces of lard/peanut butter cake on a stand right outside the door to the deck.  I can, surprisingly, do quite a bit of work sitting at the kitchen table and scoop up the camera when I see fluttering.  So far I’ve caught the common folk: sparrows, juncos, wrens, tufted titmice, chickadees, and downy woodpeckers.

I like the warm colors of the Carolina wren.

“Hewit,” says the tufted titmouse, with his crest barely visible.  Click on the picture to see some incredible detail around his eye.

The downy has a smaller bill and body than the hairy woodpecker.

Our North American flicker has been to visit, but I caught a glimpse of him only as I was walking through the dining room, and by the time I reached for my camera he was gone.  I’m still waiting for another chance to see the pileated woodpecker that I’ve seen only one time.  I thought he was a hawk at first, but his red “pineapple” crest was unmistakable.  Probably only a visitor from a bigger forested area,  but I can hope.

One day my husband said, “Look!” as I was at the table, and what I hadn’t noticed, again, was a family of four white-tailed deer walking back of the fence.  Their movement gave them away as their color tried to protect them.

Sitting on the step outside in the uncommonly good weekend weather to monitor the filled feeder by the fence, I wondered if the birds might be trying to copycat the Loch Ness Monster, they were so unavailable.  Even the squirrels were nowhere to be found.  I thought it would be a perfect chance for the birds to get the seed that was meant for them, but they didn’t take it (Meanwhile I experimented with different aperture numbers for shots of the trees and sky).  Then Downy crept up a bare oak.  I wonder if he always does that in spirals?  I got a few shots off while he was on my side, but they weren’t very good.

Of course, after I came in the house and started working on the computer I saw a flash of red.  Mr. and Mrs. Cardinal were out there.  As I sidled up to the door frame, I’m sure he saw me, because he quickly disappeared.  I got her picture, though.

So here’s a little proof that I’m putting a belated Christmas gift to use, grateful that in today’s world I don’t have to pay for and develop film for the number of shots I take while watching the birdies.