Day 81: The Bathing Eagle

This is the juvenile eagle whom I think I wrote about earlier in the summer. We saw him (I'm just guessing at the him thing) out many times on this visit up to Camp. On this day I was alone at Camp with Jamie and my two kids. We watched the eagle just sitting out there on this stump for the longest time. He'd go off the stump onto the sandbar in a few inches of water and roll around taking a bath, then back onto the stump to dry off.

After a while I couldn't stand not getting closer so I hopped in the canoe barefoot and paddled closer, but not really in that direction. The wind and current, however, carried me right to the eagle and before I knew it I was too close for my own comfort and the fact that the eagle was not flying away freaked me out. By the time I decided I needed to head back, the wind had gotten much stronger, as it tends to do in the middle of the lake and the rain started pouring down. The only choice I had was to go with the wind and the current (of the river that flows through the lake) and wait it out on the opposite side of the lake. I was camped out for at least half an hour on someone's dock, and then it was at least another half an hour of hard, meaningless paddling back home before I finally got the right idea and sat in the middle of the canoe to get back.

It was worth it though to get this cool picture. In a couple of the pictures when I was actually closer than this you can see that the eagle is tagged on one leg, which for some reason makes up hopeful about the eagle population, like someone is looking out for them.