Eagle Day at St. Marks

We made a run down to St. Marks on Sunday afternoon. When we arrived it was still cloudy and very few people were there, which can be nice. B puts the truck in drive and keeps his foot off the accelerator and we just coast down the road ---at 110mph!---(see recent blog about the broken speedometer) so we can see off the sides of the road. And we saw a lot in a couple of hours!

The biggest observations to share were the eagles. We saw an all time record of nine in different locations and only one at a time. One would suppose that some might have been the same that had just moved, but we definitely saw several different ones. One was a juvenile whose white feathers were not yet in, but its bill and feet and flight were unmistakable.

One was on the nest but I did not get a picture of it either. It is pretty far out for my lens.

This one B spotted and we got out and walked a little closer before it flew.

 

Another one flew in near the boat ramp and tried to steal a fish from an osprey.

This is my attempt to get a picture us as they flew over us in an impressive “dog-fight”!

(That is the eagle!)

Oh, well!

We don’t think the eagle was successful either, but it circled back around and came to perch in the osprey’s usual dead pine, as though to mock it.

What a day for eagles!