Golden Eagle

Aquila Chrysaetos

Tree

One day I will get a clear picture of the goldens!

This was my best attempt today. I was driving up the small dirt road that leads to the farm where I buy my hay, and came across a power transmission line. I looked down the mountain and was disappointed that the foliage was not better-most likely oaks that will change in the next few weeks.

I thought about the golden eagles, and wondered if they hung out in that area. Then, a few hundred feet down the road, I saw a golden soaring at the edge of an upcoming clearing. I pulled up to the clearing and put my foot on the brake and scrambled for the cam. By the time I had it in my hand, the golden had vanished, and I thought I missed my opportunity. Then, suddenly, from ahead of me, another golden soared by headed after the first.

No time for the viewfinder; I snapped off three quick shots aiming in the direction of the retreating golden, and then it was gone. I started to check the pix, and all of a sudden, "bang! crunch! bonk!" and I jerked my head up to realize that I had taken my foot off the brake and was driving off the wrong side of the road. Well into the puckerbrush! I quickly recovered and drove out without incident, seeing all the rocks, stonewalls, ditches, stumps, and utility poles that I could have hit when I went off the road. Luck was on my side!

When I arrived at the farm, S was in the barn and I told him my story. He looked incredulous when I told him about goldens, but had a great story himself. The night before he was headed out to the barn and saw an enormous brown shape in the field quite close to the barn. He headed in that direction, and a bull moose shook his head and stood up! The moose had one antler.

Shortly afterwards he looked out the house window, and saw a retreating moose, and ran out to see if it was the same one. That one had two antlers. So either they had been fighting or the former had lost an antler stuck in a tree. S said the first one that was down was acting quite strange, so perhaps there had a been a bull moose battle right in his back yard!

I was a little edgier than usual taking Peko on his pitch-dark walk tonight. Walking down the drive I thought I could hear sticks snapping in the woods, and once we hit the road, it was so dark I couldn't even make out my Obama sign a few feet away. I could hear my feet scuffing on the dirt road, and the light jingle of Peko's dog tags. I keps straining my ears for a 900 pound moose walking down the road, and wondered if they made much noise on the dirt. Then I wondered which way I would run if one charged me. I am pretty sure I couldn't out run a bull moose. LOL. I have to stop this or I am going to manifest an encounter of the bull .... kind. ;)