Ha!  Poor eagle.  I always find it amusing when smaller birds mob bigger ones.  Especially when it's those fearless chickadees beating up on a Red-tailed Hawk.  I saw a flock of about 200 robins going after a hawk a few days ago.

Do bald eagles nest this early.  I am amazed!
                       
                             Lola

I think Bald Eagles nest at different times depending on where their nesting territory is and whether food is available.  Since fish are their primary source of food, Bald Eagles need unfrozen bodies of water, so eagles who nest around the Great Lakes, for example, have to wait until the lakes thaw.  In Kentucky, according the KY Fish & Wildlife website, "bald eagles usually lay eggs during January-March, but will begin nest building and repair as early as October."  Our big lakes and rivers (Ohio/Mississippi) typically stay open all winter, but even with a harsh winter when the lakes partially freeze over, they are almost guaranteed to be ice-free by the time the chicks hatch and parents have a couple of extra mouths to feed.  Obviously those Florida eagles have even more flexibility.

I learned, on some eagle-watching trip, that Bald Eagles typically nest within 200 miles of where they fledged.  So I guess if you're born on Lake Erie, you come down and spend the winter in Kentucky, but go back to Lake Erie to nest.  That's also why they specifically used hack-box techniques to reintroduce eagles to states where eagles had become extirpated.  For example, when no eagles were being born in Kentucky, Indiana, or Ohio, no eagles were returning to those states to nest.  So they took young eagles who were old enough to feed themselves and put them into artificial nests in those states so that once those birds fledged, they would return to the area to nest.  I visited one of the old hack-box sites where they did this in western Kentucky; they used a pulley contraption to lower food into the nest to the young eagles to avoid exposing them to humans.  Pretty remarkable effort and a pretty remarkable success story.

Thanks, Carol, for sharing this great story again.  I also enjoyed Anne's adventures the first time, and like Lola, I was most astounded with Anne's forgiving spirit and her understanding that "Too often individuals fail to see the whole as just as important as the one."  And her commitment to spread cheer in her community.  Just an amazing person!

I thought I’d share the link to our Yellowstone/Teton photos – we just got them done!  This was from a trip in late August - early September.  It was DRY, and fires were burning all over both parks, so there was a lot of smoke and haze in the air...

So here are a couple of links to the photo album (they're the same photos, just different methods to browse them).

Thumbnail navigation (note that there are multiple pages of thumbnails:
http://photos.bellhanley.com/Trips/Hiking/Wyoming-2012

Or slideshow format:
http://photos.bellhanley.com/photos/swfpopup.mg?AlbumID=25785027&AlbumKey=65hQNR

I hope you enjoy them!

I just updated my profile with a recent picture of the new skinny Olafsens.  I'm still holding at 43 pounds lost, from a size 18 to a size 8, and am running 5 miles per day (I'll do 10K every so often simply because I can).  Rich is down 70 pounds, from a very tight XXL to a L, and he still has about 40 pounds to go!  This has been the hardest thing that we've ever done!  Quiting smoking 7 years ago was a piece of cake compared to this!

Awesome!  Congratulations on the achievement, but 5 miles every day?  That's some serious amount of running.  I only run three times a week, but my weekend runs can be pretty longish.  I cross train the other days, which is easier on my aging joints.  Have you, or are you planning to run some races?  They can be pretty fun!

Hey MAK, I think the birds in your album you needed to ID may be meadowlarks.  Check out a field guide if you've got one, especially the non-breeding plumage, and see if you agree.  As always, thanks for sharing your adventures.

Wow.  I'm so sorry for your loss, Nora, and thanks for letting us know.  Just last night I was re-reading a long email conversation I'd had with her last year.  She had been through so much but seemed to really be growing, learning, expanding her horizons...and doing those wonderfully long walks...so sad.

Nice photos, MAK, but I think your Cooper's Hawk is actually a Red-Shouldered Hawk.  I dunno what your dark one is, though.

Nice.  I should print that and hang it up as a reminder to live life fully...

I've been seeing them for the last two weeks here...been jumping over them on my runs...

My weekly email from the American Bird Conservancy tonight lists the bird of the week as "Big Bird."  Pretty funny article: 

http://www.abcbirds.org/newsandreports/botw/big_bird.html

Number one on the list was Louisville, Kentucky. 

WHEC

Yes, but we love it here anyway...taking our allergy shots, zyrtec, singulair, flonase...

Patti

One of Louisville's expert birders invited folks to come to his family farm a few years back when conditions were perfect for watching birds migrating across the moon.  There had to be a full moon during peak fall migration, and the moon had to be low on the horizon during a reasonable time of the evening.  We sat in lawn chairs with our scopes pointed at the full moon, watching the birds that were visible against its bright face.  This guy is enough of an expert that he could identify many of the birds just from their silhouettes...I didn't have a clue!

http://www.thedogfiles.com/2012/09/04/hero-dogs-of-911-legacy/

Thanks Jeanne, I had to share on FB as well...

Patti, thank you so much for sharing your great photographs!  I must confess that they made me a bit envious.  But I did notice that head nets were not so evident.  On one trip to Denali in June, the black flies were horrific.  As I remember, in June the biomass of black flies is greater than the total biomass of all other critters combined.  You have so many great photographs.  The animals and birds really cooperated with you, especially the Dall sheep and the grizzly!  Even Denali itself was especially beautiful.  It is "out" only about 20% of the time.  Thanks!

Gayle

Yes, I don't know why we didn't have too much of an insect problem...there were no flies in evidence at all (or certainly no biting flies...only a few small pollinators).  They had a really huge year for snow, and the snow had melted later than usual, so maybe the mosquitoes had a late start.  The number of mosquitoes seemed to increase every day we were there.  We only had to resort to the head nets a few times during our hikes or forays, largely because it was generally very windy.  We only had a bad mosquito problem during a few hikes through spruce forest where we were out of the wind.  And it was cool enough, even during the hottest part of the day, that we didn't have much skin exposed.  We couldn't do much sitting outside on our cabin porch reading in the evenings when the mosquitoes kicked into high gear, though...we had to stay inside after dinner.