Red-faced me

My face is red.

There was a big racket down at the water yesterday afternoon and I raced down in my bare feet to look for the Bald Eagle that I was sure must have been the cause of all the excitement. It took me a while to find anything but eventually I spotted it sitting on a dead tree on the opposite shore of the creek. So I ran back to the house for the spotting scope and alerted everyone that there was a Bald Eagle on the creek. Of course, by the time I got back to the pond and set up the scope, the Bald Eagle had metamorphosed into an Osprey. Amazing!

Not that there weren't some other nice birds around: Yellow-crowned Night Heron, Green Heron, Great Egrets in numbers, a Royal Tern or two, several Forster's Tern in adult and juvenile plumage, Least Terns and the usual gulls and crows. An Eastern Kingbird appeared on the shore and perched for a while before taking off across the creek; this species, which formerly bred on the property, has been scarce in recent years -- in fact, this was the first one this year.

Eric Salzman