Eagle Quests

Last Saturday afternoon we went with our church’s birding group to Pawnee Lake. We were told that a couple of days earlier, there were over 100 Bald Eagles hanging out there! We were excited, even though it was super cold out. We got there and saw… zero Eagles. Well, maybe a couple a few hundred miles away. Definitely not what we were hoping for! We did see this nice Red-Bellied Woodpecker. He’s one of the worst named birds ever… I’m told that sometimes, if you’re lucky, you may see a slight red on his belly. I’m pretty sure this name comes from the days when they’d shoot a bird, then hold its dead body and describe it. The day was beautiful, and we had a nice afternoon drive, but no Eagles.

We did have another amazing find. When we met up at the church, there was an older gentleman (87) waiting in his car for the group to get together. We offered him a ride in our car. His name is Don, and he had been a Med Tech like Cherryl was. [Here’s Cherryl telling the story:] Don told about how worked in lots of different hospitals in California. Then we got to talking about when he was young. In the army he had a mentor who helped him get a job in a hospital. After much more talking we came to realize that mentor was my dad!! He grew up in Santa Cruz, California area and was good friends with my uncle “Charlie”. He asked about lots of people I remembered from there. He remembered my Grampa Eyer very well. He gave Don his first job in the furniture factory he was working in then. And remembered his great bass voice. It was so amazing! We both commented repeatedly how crazy it was to have a stranger get in the car to go birding with us and it turns out he knew my family!!

We decided that the lake was totally frozen over, so the Eagles weren’t interested here anymore.

The cold doesn’t show up in the pictures, but it was real.

That night the Lincoln Adventist Men’s Choir sang the National Anthem for the basketball tournament held at Union Adventist University. The games were quite intense, and the fans very spirited!

Here is the whole anthem for your patriotic pleasure!

On Sunday, Steve and Jeanne suggested we try Branched Oak Lake. It would be just as cold, but they’ve seen plenty of Eagles there before.

As we approached the lake, we saw one majestic Bald Eagle in a tree near the road. A promising start!

Steve had a lens almost as long as my car, and he could shoot several Eagles on the ice a long way away.

Since this lake wasn’t completely frozen over, it offered a bit more hope.

Then we saw some Eagles showing off for us, flying right overhead!

We drove further around the lake, to a spot where another Eagle seeker told us there were plenty.

We definitely saw plenty! At least 30 beautiful Eagles! Wow! We saw a few attempt to snatch fish out of the water, and one actually catch a fish. Of course, that’s not when you have a camera aimed at him! Some immature Bald Eagles, like the one in the picture below, were just hanging around on the ice.