FOUND B 9 BALD EAGLE AGAIN THIS MORNING

It was pretty crisp down at the office this morning.  I don't know how much longer I can tolerate this situation.  Cold, rocking around on a boat, quiet and no one to talk to. Man alive!  I guess I'll stick with it though and see it through.  

I was running on water adjacent to yesterday's run.  Again, as yesterday, I was standing on the deck of the boat on the water waiting for the sun to rise just enough to see.  A heavy fog was hanging over the lake.

As I stated earlier it was a very crisp morning.  I like it that way.  This entry isn't much of an all day adventure.  I want to document the finding of B 9 bald eagle for the second time.  This little documentation is more for my own records than for any other reason really.

An eagle appeared in a tree hanging over the shoreline.  I eased up toward him and saw it was an adult with a wing tag.  It had to be B 9 as the only other eagle I knew with a wing tag was an immature named C 2.

It's good to photograph them just in case they fly and a positive ID can't be made visually.  The pictures can be enlarged later and identification can be verified.  This eagle was indeed B 9.

It's been four years ago that this eagle was released as an immature and here he is back home.  Amazing!

I really wanted him to fly so I could get those big numbers on the underside of his wings on camera but, he wouldn't.  I moved on.
Below is a message sent to me from The American Eagle Foundation in response to my sighting of B 9.  She has had a tough first four years of life.

Thanks for your attached excellent photos of December 6, plus more photos today, December 7, 2012. They show a maturing bald eagle, with left wing tag "B9", as sighted on lower Douglas Lake, TN, 1.6 miles SE of Dandridge, TN.

Your December 6 sighting of "B9" was with an immature bald eagle eagle with unidentified wing tag, that you suspected might be a reappearance of "C2", which you last sighted on Douglas Lake on November 20, 2012. Was the wing tag on the left wing of the immature bald eagle, as it was with "C2"? The sighting of 12/6/12 was at coordinates N36 00.046' x W083 23.425', which is 0.41-mile due south of AEF's Douglas Lake hack site.

The following is background and status information about "B9":

· B9 (leg band 629-43839) was hatched at AEF on 4/9/2009, with captive parents, Boni Spae & Franklin, now called Independence and Franklin.

· B9 was named "Sargeant" by Clara Anderson of Pennsylvania in AEF's name contest.

· Measurements of the ratio of beak depth to length of hallux claw showed it to be a female.

· It weighed 9.7 pounds a day or two before release at AEF's Douglas Lake hack site on August 3, 2009, when 11.7 weeks of age.

· It was observed OK on the shores of Lake Erie near Erie, PA from 8/23/09 - 09/01/00. It was still doing well on Lake Erie, 6 miles east of Dunkirk, New York, during 8/13/09 - 10/24/09.

· On March 21, 2010, it suffered a fractured left wing on the Ohio River near Jasper, OH. It was rehabbed at Raptor, Inc in Cincinnati and released in May, 2010. It had lost its left wing tag, "B9" when in rehab there.

· After being found grounded, with a parasite problem and worn feathers, the Alabama Raptor Rehab Center of near Birmingham, AL sent it to AEF on 8/16/12, where there would be a larger 150-foot long flight cage for its rehab.

· AEF replaced the lost "B9" left-wing tag and released it on Douglas Lake during the week of September 24, 2012.

· B9 will be four years old on 4/9/2013 and already has essentially all adult plumage in the attached photos of 12/6/12. It is therefore possible that she will be looking for a mate in the near future. Since she is now 0.41 mile from her original hack release of 8/3/09, she will hopefully want to nest quite close to "home".

Thanks again for another major bald eagle sighting, as documented with excellent photos.

Another immature eagle launched from a tree and the backdrop was perfect to watch his image fly into what "appears" to be pristine wilderness.  He looked like a prehistoric flying bird from another time.  I watched him until he disappeared.

So, that's it for today.  I have the weekend to myself so you know I'll be into something.  Saturday morning will find me in the dentist chair waiting for the learned doctor's approach with the syringe and twelve inch long, half inch diameter novocaine needle to cause much suffering and pain.  Great Scott, I hate this BS!!  See ya, maybe, if I make it back from the dentist, alive and able to continue functioning.