Tuesday, October 29, 2013

An eagle tale

October is threatening to leave and with it the last few chances to play outdoors tennis until spring, or maybe February in a warm southern state. Today was supposed to bring a little session of flurries, but instead it was just dark.

The NCW and I are back from a short weekend jaunt to the Range to check on her property and to sort of get ready for the dark months. She still is walking around in a cast that is made for walking, but driving is a few days away. Recovery is well on its way though. Today she went to work in Shoreview and I did some household chores and paid some outstanding bills. My computer modem, router and wifi cabling are still on the Comcast acceptable list, so I didn't have to arm wrestle any techies to get on the internet.

On the way back from fetching NCW at her place of employment, on Lexington Avenue near Roseville's Central Park, we encountered a bald eagle. He swooped down about a block in front of us to grab a choice chunk of road kill on the road. It was in the northbound lane as we traveled south, so he didn't seem to be worried about colliding with us. He misjudged a bit the stickiness of the choice morsel on the roadway. It took a couple of seconds to pry it free, but he was successful and managed to take off again and fly towards the trees on my side of the road. I guess he erred a bit in his trajectory calculations, because he flew directly into my path, and I was forced to brake to avoid knocking him out of the sky. I got a good visual closeup, but without my camera in hand, I can't really prove it. Instead, I'm left with this photo of another eagle taken in October, 2006, on Pike Island, to stand in for today's bird. It may be a grandparent.


It was dark day, but even on dark days there are memorable moments.

Halloween is just two days off.  The Prairie Princess carved a couple of jack-o-lanterns over the weekend, so I guess we're covered.  The eating season always starts with the candy holiday.  It's coming around again.

2 comments:

Santini said...

Great story, great photo.

NCW must have been glad to see her lake, even if for just a short time.

The dark season is definitely approaching. We've purchased our tickets to a sunnier clime. Perhaps we'll see you and NCW there.

Gino said...

Cool, really cool.