We saddled up and moved on.
He tore strips of flesh from the fish and tossed them back and down his throat. This bird is probably about 3 years of age and it looks like he may be beginning to molt. Look at his feathers in the first picture above where his wings are extended out to the sides. His primary feathers appear to be a bit ragged. Eagles molt once or twice per season, usually once in the Fall. They don't molt all at once as they need their feathers to hunt and survive. Shore birds usually replace all their feathers in one molting and they molt up to 4 times per year. The eagle's molting usually begins with the replacement of the birds primary feathers and some covert feathers. As the new feathers replace the old - other feathers begin to be replaced and he is never, ever without the ability to fly. In this way his juvenile feathers will eventually be discarded and replaced with his adult feathers bearing the color of an adult eagle.
The photo immediately above has been reduced in quality to allow uploading. Yes - I'm becoming frustrated with this Hugh's.Net satellite system. Useless!
The boat drifted close to the rock cliff and would soon make contact. The eagle became uneasy as we drifted toward his tree and he took his fish and flew off. Beautiful!
A killdeer scampers along the bank close to the water searching out small sand beetles.
A green heron perches on a limb and clucked softly. Odd thing to be clucking softly for this guy.
I was pulling out of the parking lot at the boat ramp and saw a very unusual boat.
It was big and had a 440 horsepower engine on it. This is an air boat. They're used in Florida a lot in the swamps and backwaters.
I became very depressed as I talked to this guy. The engine on this machine is a 12 cylinder 440 horsepower engine. It has header exhausts installed and is louder than you can imagine. The occupants must wear ear protection in order to stand the engine noise. Top speed is 80 miles per hour. I asked him where he intended to run the contraption. He said he was going upstream past the Pigeon River. That's exactly where the great egrets and cormorants are located. He will be blasting past the bald eagles and the green herons not to mention the swans that cling to the left shoreline above the Rankin Bridge. He'll be blasting under the ospreys at Rankin. All these animals are sensitive to human intrusion. This guy will be driving, what must appear to them, as an intercontinental ballistic missile through their narrow river habitat. This is a senseless, inconsiderate action but, its perfectly legal. These people are perfect examples of the human element in the wilderness. This is another reason I hate this damn mud hole lake. People. People everywhere who care only about their own property lines and probably sit in their living rooms with binoculars just waiting for a boat to beach on their precious soil so they can call the law. They care little for the wild things that "try" to coexist. All the creatures of the river can do is get out of the way. Their futures are hanging on a thin thread.
This satellite system I'm using is next to useless for just about anything internet wise. There should be investigations conducted into the satellite internet industry. DSL is faster than satellite. I can't even enlarge my own pictures on the site. Uploading them is excruciatingly slow. I've called Hugh's.Net and they say the equipment and satellite checks are good. Its interesting to note that "all" their technical staff reside in India. I asked Raja, my expert technical rep, whether he is using Hughs satellite over in India working for Hughs.Net. He said no. Hughs uses cable. Interesting they won't use their own product. I recommended he try satellite internet and see how he likes it. I bring this up because I may have to stop or reduce the postings on the blog. It takes literally hours to do a posting now that used to take one hour with cable. I could and may go back to Verizon 4G. It is the best internet connection I've ever see. One must be careful not to go over the allotted usage. The penalty is $10 for every gigabytes over 8 gigabytes. We'll see what happens.
Yes it is unfortunate that we have so many useless and senseless people that do not understand the value of nature's gifts. Heartbreaking. a.
ReplyDeleteI have ridden on regular air boats in La.when I lived there and you needed ear muffs on them and they had much much smaller motors.Great for getting back in the swamps and shallows but something like that blasting up an open river or lake is ridiculous.Only good thing is it is so expensive to buy and run that there won't be many but one is to many IMHO
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