Great Day for Birding

As I was driving out to meet Cynthia for a walk this morning, I saw an enormous golden eagle, probably female, and a much smaller bald eagle, probably male, circling each other over the duck pond. No camera, unfortunately. We have a pair of bald eagles that winter here - we've named them Hercules and Xena - and we see quite a few bald eagles in the area in the winter months, but hardly ever a golden eagle. I couldn't believe how huge it was! When I pulled out of the gate, it was just landing in the top of a tree across the highway, and when I got back, neither of them were in sight.

Last week we had a flock of seagulls here, and we've started to see redwing blackbirds, mountain bluebirds, kestrels, all the signs of spring.

The only wildlife we saw on our walk today was a squirrel, but we didn't walk too far - just the 2.7 miles of so we had left of 435. Most of our time today was spent scouting to see how much of Forest Road 141 is actually paved - the answer is, 18.8 miles of it. We're going to save it for later, when it's hot, since it'll be a lot cooler walking in the trees. It might be a good place to spot bear and mountain lion.