A few days ago, we took a different way home because Ryker wanted to count eagles again. There are too many cows to count and too few hawks, ect. He's into the eagles. There were 3 in trees along the Sammish river in the morning and we contemplated whether they were looking for fish in the water or rodents along the built up bank because the farmland was so flooded that the rodents had taken to higher ground. Anyway, we saw so many right outside of Edison on Farm to Market Rd on our way home that we actually had to stop because Ryker was having a hard time getting an accurate count. Yep, we looked like bird watchers out there. So again, all males (or so we thought). The next morning, we happened to see 2 females in a field so I stopped to show Ryker what they looked like. This began a half hour conversation as to why the females were showing up now. Ryker concluded that their eggs must have finally hatched so they didn't have to sit on them anymore. When would we see the babies? How many eggs do they lay? How long does it take them to hatch? When can they fly? ect, ect, ect.
Well like I said about a week ago, I needed to get on the Internet and get some eagle info before the questions got too hard. I still hadn't done that so I picked up some eagle books at the library today while he was at school. I was telling Seth today that we had gotten the books so we were going to get to the bottom of this mystery of where the females have been and why they are showing up now. He asked me how I could tell the difference. My response: Because the males have the white heads. He said they both have white heads. (Note to Seth or anyone else for that matter: feel free to mention any inaccurate facts I post on my blog immediately, especially if I am spewing them to our children!) When I got off the phone, I ran for my eagle books. What a dufus! I have no idea why I thought this, but I thought this was a female.
By now I'm sure you've guessed, it isn't! This is a juvenile. They don't get their white heads until they are about 5 years old. I gathered Ryker and Kya up on the couch and read them both eagle books. They answered all of their questions and then some and we put all of our "theories" to rest regarding what the females have been up too. What a dork I am! I didn't see bald eagles until I was in college and started going to Alaska. I can see myself just assuming this was a female if I saw them together, but I can also see my joke-ster fellow crewmen messing with me as they did with everything else my first year. They used to tell me stories all the time about everything just to see which ones I would believe, because I was in a whole new world totally foreign to me. I wish there was google back then. I would have to go ask an old skipper because it seemed like every crewman or younger skipper around knew my own crew was always messing with me and didn't want to give me a straight answer and spoil their fun! The older ones seemed to take pitty on me because I was such an easy target amidst a sea of guys who had grown up around fishing and the ocean and it was clearly not second nature to me. I'm not a naive person, but I remember falling for a few. I had to check my facts that entire first summer and I was very careful about what I repeated, just in case. I remember sitting for hours on the Blue Pacific getting a lesson from Jerry Holmstom about tides and the salmon life cycle. I'm wondering now if this one slipped by me or if I came to this conclusion on my own. Either way I've thought that only the males had the white heads for as long as I can remember. Luckily, Ryker is still young enough that he won't start googling every fact I tell him just to double check! Maybe he should though so he doesn't end up being the dumb kid spouting inacurrate facts about America's Iconic bird!
No comments:
Post a Comment