Bald Eagle

It rained in the morning, but the day cleared a bit in the afternoon. I went to Como Park to see what sort of landscaping changes are being done this year. The city fathers are planting a lot of trees - many are red maples - to replace the trees that were blown down by the big windstorm two years ago. They seem to do this tree planting every year, but they don't always do a very good job of keeping them watered and thus the survival rate is not high enough.

There were a lot of birds in the park - a red-winged blackbird, mallards, black ducks of some ilk, and the usual array of robbins and grackles. But for the first time that I can remember, I encountered a bald eagle. It was sitting on a branch next to the lake, looking for prey, I assume. It remained there long enough for me to take several photos, this being the best.


The walk around the park took a couple of hours. It's a big park. The butterfly garden is just beginning to show colors of spring flowers. These pretty yellow ones were the most colorful of the lot. It was a little windy, maybe too windy to ride a bike, but for hiking around in the great outside, it was very comfortable.


And there was tennis tonight at Wooddale with the hardcore girls. This was our last night of the indoor season, because USTA women's doubles conflicts with our Thursday slot. Jerry is still out of action, so Pat was a sub. After a couple of close sets the hardcore ladies wanted to play together to get ready for USTA matches, where they play as doubles partners. Pat and I said we'd be glad to play a set. So we did. They promptly won the first two games and things looked bad for the male gender, but we were able to rally and right the ship and eventually eked out a win. But it was another good competitive set and a good end to the indoor season.

Then I went to Yang's for Chinese food.