Big bird day

Today, after I'd taught my two classes, met with students for my full office hours, attended a lunch meeting and a faculty seminar, my husband and I went in search of bald eagles in an event sponsored by my small college on the hill's environmental center.

The evening was rather dreary and I suggested that perhaps we should stay and do it another time, but my husband (who works at home all day) was ready with his binoculars, rain jacket and baseball cap, so off we went. Once there, there were about 50 people waiting to be driven to the place where a nest of eagles has been spotted, and we went in the second go round after waiting about 30 minutes.

My trusty little digital camera can do many things, but it was not up to the task of photographing the beautiful bald eagle perched atop a tree through the lens of a telescope. Still, one of my first year students, who was also there, volunteered to try for a photo and got what I think is a funky, kind of Poesque picture, where the eagle looks more like a raven in a Halloween rendition.

If you look closely, you can see the eagle as a rather big black smudge on the left side of the lens. She took a much better photo with her own digital camera and said she'd e-mail me a copy, so I'll share that here when I get it.

Earlier today, while I was at my office, my husband got lucky and caught a glimpse of our elusive Pileated, who can be heard daily carpentering away at the trees or calling in its loud, monkey-like yelp.

I can't express how much I love this huge bird, with its Pájaro loco red Mohawk on its head and its Guazón-like black-stripes-over-white make-up. It's simply a treat to have it so near and so often visible.

While we enjoyed a day of big birds, Magellan continued her observational research on squirrels. Unlike Darwin, who's known to charge the window and suffer the consequences of his "shoot first, ask questions later" approach, Magellan simply sits, looks regal (if a little plump), focuses intently, and gets somewhat excited when the squirrels try to climb to the suet cage. But she gets only a very little excited, nothing that requires too much exertion or even much of a change in pose.

Except maybe a little squinting of her Caribbean-blue eyes against the sun.