Eagles!
There's this poem I like. It's about geese:
The geese flying south
In a row long and V-shaped
Pulling in winter
Sally Andreson
If geese pull in winter, here, the eagles pull in spring.
Anyone who has ever lived in Western Washington will tell you that the winters are dark. The sun can rise as late as 8:00 AM and set as early as 4:20 PM, and often the cloud cover is so thick that it feels like a stormy morning all day. You'll hear of people - usually Californians - who move to Seattle for work and run screaming in the other direction when winter rolls in because they just can't handle it. And the rain. It makes more sense to count the days it doesn't rain than to count the days it does.
Winter drags on forever out here, all of it feeling like one long stormy night that just won't end. Springtime feels a lot like waking up. Around February is when you start noticing daylight returning; I don't have to use my brights to drive home at 5 anymore. March is an unpredictable grab bag of a month, but it's more or less when the very first trees and flowers start coming back to life. I remember growing up in Federal Way (re: Tacoma suburb) every year it was around my birthday, March 7th, that the frogs and crickets in the pond behind the house would start to sing again.
It's my first Washington spring in...what, seven, eight years? It's exciting. It's actually still light when I get home from work! And this light means I get to see in the daylight hours for the first time what has been happening since December: the eagles are pairing up.
Of all the states in the U.S., Washington is second only to Alaska in its bald eagle population. I think about half of Washington's eagles live on the 20 mile stretch of beach from my house to my work :P They are EVERYWHERE, especially now that they're finding mates. This morning I counted ten on the way to work and four more once at work. When they start building nests, they'll be even more noticeable - bald eagle nests can be as much as thirteen feet deep and weight over a ton.
Bald eagles out here have wingspans from six to seven feet and can stand up to three feet tall. Their feet (talons included) are about the size of a child's hand. A beak is longer than my pointer finger. These are BIG birds. Seeing them flying, part of me always wonders how the hell they stay up there, there's so big. There's a sense of power in their flight, each wingstroke deliberate and strong. I can tell them apart from any other bird, even at long distances, because of how they fly.
AND THEY'RE EVERYWHERE. Eagles, and eagle memorabilia. Every third lawn has some kind of kitschy eagle chainsaw driftwood carving. Eagles on posters, in advertisements, and in real life, occasionally dropping fish on cars. (Happened to a coworker. True story.) Most American kids, I imagine, have never seen a wild bald eagle before; the kids here have lived with eagles their entire lives. Some of my fourth graders were shocked to learn that non-Natives aren't allowed to possess eagle feathers, because everyone out here does, eagle feathers on walls and in picture frames and hanging from rear-view mirrors.
The trees are still bare of leaves, and eagles are everywhere, easily visible among the branches. Eagle courtship rituals like talon-locking are common sights. AND I KEEP FORGETTING TO BRING MY DAMN CAMERA TO WORK. So here's my goal for this week: remember my fucking camera for Friday, the day I get off early, so I can drive around in the blessed daylight and get some decent photos. See, I already have a set of eagle pictures from back in October, but the camera was on the wrong setting and the bird was very far off, so they're kind of crap quality. Shame, coulda been perfect motivational poster fodder otherwise.
So here are those unedited shitty pictures made even shittier by photobucket's stupid resizing, until I can take some good ones:
(and I really need a telephoto lens, grumble grumble, at least I know what I want for my birthday)
.
The geese flying south
In a row long and V-shaped
Pulling in winter
Sally Andreson
If geese pull in winter, here, the eagles pull in spring.
Anyone who has ever lived in Western Washington will tell you that the winters are dark. The sun can rise as late as 8:00 AM and set as early as 4:20 PM, and often the cloud cover is so thick that it feels like a stormy morning all day. You'll hear of people - usually Californians - who move to Seattle for work and run screaming in the other direction when winter rolls in because they just can't handle it. And the rain. It makes more sense to count the days it doesn't rain than to count the days it does.
Winter drags on forever out here, all of it feeling like one long stormy night that just won't end. Springtime feels a lot like waking up. Around February is when you start noticing daylight returning; I don't have to use my brights to drive home at 5 anymore. March is an unpredictable grab bag of a month, but it's more or less when the very first trees and flowers start coming back to life. I remember growing up in Federal Way (re: Tacoma suburb) every year it was around my birthday, March 7th, that the frogs and crickets in the pond behind the house would start to sing again.
It's my first Washington spring in...what, seven, eight years? It's exciting. It's actually still light when I get home from work! And this light means I get to see in the daylight hours for the first time what has been happening since December: the eagles are pairing up.
Of all the states in the U.S., Washington is second only to Alaska in its bald eagle population. I think about half of Washington's eagles live on the 20 mile stretch of beach from my house to my work :P They are EVERYWHERE, especially now that they're finding mates. This morning I counted ten on the way to work and four more once at work. When they start building nests, they'll be even more noticeable - bald eagle nests can be as much as thirteen feet deep and weight over a ton.
Bald eagles out here have wingspans from six to seven feet and can stand up to three feet tall. Their feet (talons included) are about the size of a child's hand. A beak is longer than my pointer finger. These are BIG birds. Seeing them flying, part of me always wonders how the hell they stay up there, there's so big. There's a sense of power in their flight, each wingstroke deliberate and strong. I can tell them apart from any other bird, even at long distances, because of how they fly.
AND THEY'RE EVERYWHERE. Eagles, and eagle memorabilia. Every third lawn has some kind of kitschy eagle chainsaw driftwood carving. Eagles on posters, in advertisements, and in real life, occasionally dropping fish on cars. (Happened to a coworker. True story.) Most American kids, I imagine, have never seen a wild bald eagle before; the kids here have lived with eagles their entire lives. Some of my fourth graders were shocked to learn that non-Natives aren't allowed to possess eagle feathers, because everyone out here does, eagle feathers on walls and in picture frames and hanging from rear-view mirrors.
The trees are still bare of leaves, and eagles are everywhere, easily visible among the branches. Eagle courtship rituals like talon-locking are common sights. AND I KEEP FORGETTING TO BRING MY DAMN CAMERA TO WORK. So here's my goal for this week: remember my fucking camera for Friday, the day I get off early, so I can drive around in the blessed daylight and get some decent photos. See, I already have a set of eagle pictures from back in October, but the camera was on the wrong setting and the bird was very far off, so they're kind of crap quality. Shame, coulda been perfect motivational poster fodder otherwise.
So here are those unedited shitty pictures made even shittier by photobucket's stupid resizing, until I can take some good ones:
(and I really need a telephoto lens, grumble grumble, at least I know what I want for my birthday)
.