On my way home from work tonight, I was driving by the airport, on the way to the highway. As I slowed to a stop, a raptor floated down from the adjacent noise abatement berm. It was much larger than the Red-tailed hawks that I usually see along this stretch of road. It passed in front of me, between an already stopped car and myself. It floated roof-height across the road, lifted over the double chain link fence and then the security berm and disappeared into the airport. I considered calling Homeland Security, but since the bird was a mature American Bald eagle, the symbol of our country, I figured it was alright.
The airport is a ways from the rivers, where these eagles usually are found, but they are occasionally seen in Forest Park, which is also as far from the river. The picture of Liberty, the Bald eagle, was taken last January. He (she?) was on display at the Mel Price visitor’s center. Perched in front of a uniform green wall, it made for the perfect green screen shot. I added the winter woods background from last weekend, and voilà! Today’s momentary sighting epitomized the spirit of the day. Work went well, anyway, much better than yesterday. Customers were in and they left satisfied, but more importantly, so did my management.
Liberty in a Winter Setting
Anne worked 2nd grade in the morning and then took the afternoon off to attend to a contractor. Our front door has been sticking, really badly. So bad that it has become almost impossible to open or close the door. Our neighbors recommended this guy and Anne was home to greet him. At first it seemed that he would not be able to do anything, or worse, he had succeeded to make the problem worse. In the end though, he fixed it. Now it is so easily opened that one has to guard against flinging the door wide open. We are very satisfied with “Get It Done”.
Finally, I’ll leave you with the following YouTube video, from Russia with love. Crows and their larger cousins, ravens, are the most intelligent of birds. A PBS “Nature” episode, “A Murder of Crows”, has documented this. Hat tip to Dana Steven’s of Slate for this twin steer. They can recognize a human individual’s face. So, you better be nice, because they are watching and they can tell who is naughty and nice. They can also use a selection of tools to perform a sequenced task. In this video a crow is filmed “roof tubing” or sledding. All people dream of flying. Flying is freedom. Crows can fly. If crows who can fly, can take such obvious joy in sledding, then sledding must be as much fun as we think it is. Let it snow!
We had a similar, but different, crow siting today. I think each house in our neighborhood has their own crow or two. On the snow covered roof across the street a crow was taking a “snow bath” in a couple of different spots. Looked almost like what birds do in birdbaths. But I was wondering if this was really just a means to get down to something tasty that was under the snow. Note in the you-tube, the crows stops after the second slide and pecks at something beneath the snow. Similar.