Sunday, January 04, 2009

Sunday. Cold and Cool.

The cold part...

the other message board said -25

The cool part...

flock of eagles

Sundays in the winter a woman feeds bald eagles in the VFW parking lot in Eagle River. The eagles start showing up about five minutes before she pulls up, opens the back of her Jeep, and starts tossing out meat scraps.

watching impatiently

It's amazing. There were probably 30 eagles there today, all flying around waiting for their chance to get some meat. It reminded me of seagulls around a fishing trawler. Others were hanging out in the trees, waiting.

eagles hanging out

And bald eagles are huge. Amazing. We were about twenty feet from them, they flew almost right over us. So completely cool. (And cold. We were standing outside in twenty below weather. Even the eagles couldn't completely distract us from how cold it was.)

eagle drive thru

another eagle, not a bald one

landing on the treetop


big eagle
This is a different species of eagle, I think, but I don't know what kind of eagle it is.

incoming

Also, Zachary asked me to mention that Jessica is a terrrrible texter. I don't know what this means. Sorry, Jessica.

7 comments:

  1. I'd like to visit Alaska just to watch the eagles. To think that I was impressed by seeing a couple eagles in an aviary up in Salt Lake. Imagine 30 of them flying overhead! Hope Zach remained un-annointed. ;)

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  2. Hi, Vickie! This particular opportunity is only available in the wintertime...Which means you have to brave close to or subzero weather. I think it is completely worth it, but then I like the cold and the snow.

    Oh, yeah, and nobody got pooped on. Thank goodness. Eagle poop is not tiny, I think.

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  3. That may almost make me considering moving to Anchorage.
    I am a total eagle lover. Last winter and spring I spent hours each day watching the Wvec.com eagle cam. They are magnificent creatures!

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  4. amazing photos! I loved them all, but not sure I would brave sub zero weather unless I was already there and I could wear lots of thermal underwear!

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  5. Anonymous11:29 PM

    Oh, wow. Very cool, indeed! I'm amazed that the eagles know before the woman gets there to feed them. And -18 is just cold as hell, except hell is warm, but... ;)

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  6. That's all very cool (no pun intended), but what happens if that lady gets sick and can't feed those eagles? Is she really doing them any favors by habituating them to what she's doing? And they ARE habituated ... make no mistake. If they're showing up five minutes before she does ....

    It great to see so many eagles - but I would rather see them gathered around some carcass fallen in the wild than to see them clustering for handouts.

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  7. Anonymous8:21 PM

    Hi, I just discovered your blog today. Very enjoyable.

    This is one of the coolest things I've seen lately. Beautiful creatures.

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