The county road by the river is almost completely free to snow and ice, even along the edges, and today was bright, sunny, and not too cold. Time for a walk! Last year we weren’t able to go for walks on the road until March. It’s just an amazingly warm January, and not too snowy either.
Heading up the road, less than a mile to the border crossing.
I took the camera along today because we’ve been seeing Bald Eagles along the river when we go to town. So I asked Dan to drive downriver to the trees where they usually hang out. Nobody was home, and I was a little disappointed. I decided to take the camera with us anyway and just take a picture of how nice the road is for walking right now.
A large Ponderosa Pine next to the road.
The really neat thing about these trees is how their bark smells when the weather is hot and the sun is shining on their bark – they smell like vanilla. Really.
As we got around the corner, we started seeing and hearing Ravens and then an eagle. Dan pointed up the road at a Bald Eagle sitting on the roadway, right where we were going to be walking. It was obvious there was a dead deer up there off the side of the road as there was a bird party going on.
One of eight or more eagles hanging out in the woods and along the roadway. Most were full adults like this one, a couple of juveniles of various ages.
They were quite active, jumping off branches, flying around, yelling at each other and generally carrying on.
This is the same bird as in the previous picture; they took flight immediately after I snapped their picture. Impressive wingspan.
Several eagles were soaring overhead, squeaking. They have a tiny voice, really, for such large birds.
This one was pretty close, in a cottonwood tree right next to the road, and not in the least bid afraid of us.
He was keeping a close eye on us, and hoping we'd leave the roadway soon so the party could recommence.
We didn’t hang around much were the dead deer was lying; we were interrupting not even the Bald Eagles, but also thirty Ravens and a half dozen Magpies.
Coming out of the trees and back into the sunshine. The river is breaking up in the shallow areas.
There was a bird singing along the river and Dan asked me if I knew what it was. It was a Dipper, another of our favorite types of birds. And right then one of them flew over to our side of the river and was standing along the edge of the ice, bobbing it tail and being a dipper.
These little birds feed by jumping into the water and walking around on the bottom.
Their feathers are so dense and waterproof that they are sort of encased in a bubble of air and the water never penetrates. When they pop back out the water just runs off them in beads. They hang out along this river all winter long, as it rarely freezes completely, and they just need a little opening of running water.
Looking downriver, towards the south and the sun was starting to get fairly low in the sky.
The weather is so spring-like that only the short days provide the hint that this is mid winter and things could change at any time.
Dan had a mouse rodeo this morning with Mishkin, as soon as he got up. There was a mouse hiding under the speaker in the living room; when he lifted the speaker, Mish stuck in a paw and without claws tapped the mouse on the side a few times – tap, tap, tap. The mouse ran and hid between the modem and the wall; Mish tapped again and the mouse ran back to the big speaker. Dan and Mish repeated this a couple of times until Mish was too slow when Dan lifted the speaker, and Dan was able to nab the mouse. Whew. Out the door it went. I think Mish was relieved because he ran upstairs to use his cat box, and then had a bite to eat and something to drink before stretching out in the front of the woodstove, looking very pleased with himself. He’s taken a couple of naps today already; I think he was up most of the night playing with his little friend.
Great photos, glad to see you’re having a good time 🙂