Immature Golden Eagle

I’ve always said that when it is hotter than hades in Saint Louis, the weather here on Lake Superior is perfect. During this week’s heatwave I have been judicious in refraining from pointing this out, but now that the heatwave is passing, I feel that I can do this without flashing too much schadenfreude about the web. It was sunny, but there was a pretty good blow today. We kept a fire going, to ward off the cold. I of course wore just shorts and a t-shirt and only occasionally a vest.

Both Anne and I spent a good deal of time in the kitchen. I made another batch of “California” chicken salad for lunch. We made Hummingbird cupcakes, but not with real hummingbirds. It’s a Jamaican dish. We made dinner réchauffer, repurposing the Chicken Tartarin, adding a medley of veggies and couscous. I also turned the leftover garlic bread into Texas toast. After dinner, I helped Anne ice the cupcakes and of course performed the task of being chief bottle washer.

Pictured is an immature Golden eagle. We also saw, but didn’t photograph Bald eagles. I say this even though Golden eagles are rare east of the Mississippi, because our tour boat captain said so. He first told us this and then later added justification. Like, “the height of a female Golden eagle is 41″, while the height of a Bald eagle is only 36″ and the wingspan on the Golden eagle is 45″, while the Bald eagle only has…” You get the point. I’m a birder or at least I like birds and in the past, I have gotten a bit fanciful in my bird identifications. I shouldn’t impugn this guy’s expertise, because he seemed more knowledgeable about natural science than I am, but the more he spoke, the less convinced I became. Still, who am I to question authority? 🙂

On the way back, our illustrious captain began to riff in his running patter. He saw a group of geese swimming and told us that they were called a gaggle of geese, but if they had been flying above, they would have been a wedge. He went on from there, elucidating that a group of hummingbirds is called a charm.

Then he departed from the avian class, with a query to the ship’s company, what do you call a group of baboons? The answer to this old joke of course is a congress, which elicited a few chuckles, but I was concerned. With the past week’s racist attacks on congresswomen of color and the history of racists comparing people of color to primates, I couldn’t help wonder if there was some racist subtext going on here? Maybe I’m being too woke? Maybe he wasn’t woke enough? Maybe I should give him the benefit of the doubt? Maybe not.