Monday, August 16, 2010

Camping With Baby Bald






Redbush and family have been camping in the wilderness areas for the past while when they haven't been doing yard work, thus, her blogging time has been non-existent. This last camping trip was quite eventful as they had a number of events happen at their camp spot that made their trip worthwhile. After a few days that they were there, a wolf was there trying to entice Bonzi, or Beatle out so that they could have them for their midnight snacks. Fortunately for Bonzi and Beatle, both of them were in their refuge, Bonzi in his kennel, and Beatle in the camper sprawled out on our bed. Mr. Redbush realized what had happened when he heard some coyotes very close to the camper calling out in their high-pitched yelps . Neither dog said a word, but, upon noticing the next morning, Mr. Redbush found the tracks of the coyotes chasing the wolf. Apparently they put the run on Mr. Wolfee because they weren't going to have him take away their chance for easy food. For this reason, Bonzi and Beatle are kept very close eyes on while Redbush and family are out there. The next interesting event was helicopters landing very close to the camper loading up on spray to spray the blocks where the logging company had logged. Redbush still can't figure out why they are spraying blocks out in the wild. It annoyed them, but when confronted, the company's spray foreman wouldn't give Mr. Redbush the time of day about it.
The most interesting part of Redbush's camping trip was camping with the eagle. Mr. Redbush noticed upon the family coming back from one of their outings, that a large brown shape was sitting on a block very close to their campsite. Upon investigating he noticed that it seemed to be an eagle that was very weak. Their were not sightings of the parents, so Redbush and Mr. Redbush decided to relinquish one of their prized suppers to him. They took their t-bone steaks out of the package, and chopped one of them up. He was only to happy to chow down on the raw morsels when Mr. Redbush fed him from one of their cooler lids. They then decided to feed him the other one the next day as he still seemed very hungry, calling out, and all alone. As you will notice from the pictures, you can see some very large sharp talons and a mighty large even sharper beak. Mr. Eagle was there for a few days before the parents started showing up. He didn't seem to be able to fly, so, Mr. Redbush surmised that he must have dropped out of his huge nest a couple of weeks too soon. The parents took turns bringing him the odd piece of food from time to time while he stayed in the campsite morning and night for all the four days that Redbush and Mr. Redbush took pictures and used binoculars to zoom in on him. Redbush missed her chance to get a picture of the father, a huge bald eagle. Bald eagles are very shy, so,he didn't stick around very long after dropping the food off for the youngster. Both parents perched on different snags close to the campsite keeping watch during the day while the little guy (not so little as far as birds go) called out. The youngling would disappear when dark came, so, Redbush concluded that he must have gone down into the brush by the slough behind him to hide for the night. They were glad to see him perched on his block in the morning as they knew that there were lots of coyotes, wolves and such that could have ended his life each night. The Redbush family feel very lucky to have been able to watch this special event and are sure that this will be a once- in -a- lifetime experience. They really hated to come home as they wanted to be able to see him get enough strength up to fly. It bothers them to know that they will never know if he made it eventually, but they have to believe that he built up the strength to. It felt like they were leaving one of their pets behind. She will share some of the over 120 pictures and a few movies that she took when he was still not too fiesty. She hopes you enjoy them. Sorry! It said the video didn't load, but I've loaded two of them. Have a super August!

9 comments:

solarity said...

What an absolutely fascinating experience! How many people get to foster-feed a baby eagle?

Mary Anne in Kentucky

the Bag Lady said...

Amazing!

Can't you and Mr Redbush go back and find out if the poor guy survived??

He was lucky that it was you and your hubby who found him - there are a lot of people who would have tormented him. Kudos to you for feeding him!

Redbush said...

Thanks, Solarity! We do feel privileged! Of course if I would have been more with it, I could have zoomed in on daddy through our camper window. That would have been a shot to keep even if it was through the screen.

I'm sure we'll be back there again. It's Bonzi's favourite swimming hole. Bonzi was even fairly close to him, and just lied down when I told him to. He had no desire to go close to him. Thanks for the compliment. I was worried that on the weekend after we left that people may try to torment him. I'm trying to make myself believe that they didn't. We hated to leave him.

Leah J. Utas said...

That's amazing. I think you've made a friend for life.

David Cranmer said...

Incredible pics and video!

Cheryl Kohan said...

Oh, Wow!! What an experience that was...thanks to Bag Lady for sending me over to your blog. I'm sure your kindness kept that little guy alive and the parents were probably really grateful. Love the little videos and the photos are just excellent.

Redbush said...

Thanks, Leah! I hope when we go back that we see him circling the are with his parents.

I wish I would have zoomed in on the parents, too, David. He was a spectacular little guy, but, quite huge, may I add!

Thanks for stopping by, Cheryl! We took some 130 pictures of him ,so, we were very partial to our experience. it would be great to get another glimpse of him when we went back!

Hilary said...

Oh lucky you to get such a close view of them. There are baldies up at Frank's cottage too but we're never anywhere near them. They sure are wonderful to watch when soaring high.

Redbush said...

Thanks Hilary! I feel so privileged to have been able to take over some 140 pictures of him. He was absolutely gorgeous!