The eagle that lost the competition with Jobe; eagle above, ravens below; eagle flies

Three days ago, I posted a picture of Jobe sleeping in the car, and wrote about how he had to compete with an eagle for that spot, and he won.

This is the eagle that Jobe beat.

A raven is perched on a branch below.

I didn't mention it, but on the day before yesterday there was also an eagle in the competiton - a younger one, that I saw in the same tree as I drove by with Lavina, the two of us sipping coffee. This eagle had to compete with two smart-aleck horses and a school bus for the next slot on the blog.

The eagle lost.

I am certain that you already have, but, just in case you haven't, please note the five ravens on the gravel bar below.

So late Saturday afternoon, after I visited Metro, I returned to the same place, this time with a telephoto lens. The light was dim, so I had to push my ISO way up high into the digital noise range. I hoped there would be a bunch of eagles hanging about, but I found only this juvenile.

It was suspicious of me. 

An older eagle, with a full head of white, will generally stay put when you draw near, but you never know about a young one.

The young eagle decided to go.

Bye, bye, eagle - see you in Texas.

If you go to Texas... if I go to Texas.

Why would either one of us be going to Texas?

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Eagle perched in tree at dusk, just up Shrock Road from the Little Su; two kids pose for someone else

The sun had gone down, darkness was setting in and I was sipping coffee as I drove the Ford Escape down Shrock Road toward the Little Susistna River. Shoshana had served me that coffee. She always looks nice but today she looked exceptionally so and I thought that I should shoot a few more "Young Writer Studies" of her as she prepared my coffee, but I couldn't because I had forgotten my camera.

Then I came upon this bald eagle, perched in this tree.

"Damnit!" I swore. "Here I am, with no camera! I could drive back home and get my camera, but the eagle will surely be gone by the time I get back!"

But sometimes an eagle will sit still in a tree for a very long time, so I decided I would give it a try. I was somewhere between three and four miles from the house. I turned the car around, raced back and got my camera.

The eagle was still there when I got back.

There wasn't much light left.

I took the picture anyway.

"Thank you, Bill," the eagle said.

"You're welcome, Eagle," I said.

Actually, no such exchange took place.

The eagle did not care. The eagle was completely indifferent to the fact.

They say that eagles have the sharpest eyes of anybody.

Yet, this eagle will never look at this photo.

If by chance the eagle did see this photo, the eagle would not care about it at all.

The eagle would rather see a fish.

The eagle would rather that the eagle be the last thing that the fish was ever aware of.

Eagles have their priorities, and admiring photographs of themselves are not among those priorities.

Somebody came driving along in a pickup.

Maybe the driver saw the eagle, maybe not.

I suspect that the driver did see the eagle.

Even though it was getting dark, the eagle was kind of hard to miss.

And this from India:

Through the window of our taxi, I spot two kids posing for someone else as we drive by.

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A little storm blew in just before tax day and came down upon an American bald eagle

I have fallen behind. April 15, tax day, is drawing close to its end and I have not even put up a post yet. It was a fairly eventful day for me. I went to town, had lunch with Melanie, visited with Warren Matumeak, who readers met in yesterday's post as he drummed for Suurimmaanitchuat, and his daughters; drove home, passed a Volkswagen, saw a bit of the Wasilla Tea Party rally.

But I am going to go to bed early tonight and I will wait until I get up Friday morning, April 16, and then I will blog about April 15 and try to have it up by noon, Alaska time; 4:00 PM East Coast. That means that this post will only be at the top of the page for a very short time.

In the meantime, just so the day does not end without me putting up a post, here are a few images from April 14, when a minor storm of no consequence blew in.

In the afternoon, as I headed toward Metro Cafe, I saw these kids walking through it.

I then drove down and crossed the bridge over the Little Susistna River, where I saw a bald eagle sitting in a tree. I was a little irritated with myself, as this was a job that my pocket camera simply was not up to. I wondered why I couldn't keep a DSLR with a long lens in the car, just for occassions like this?

Yet, when I set out to document the world around me with a pocket camera, I know that I can never do with it what I can do with a DSLR, but the goal is to get a picture that is somewhat worthwhile anyway.

So I parked the car and decided to see how close I could get to the eagle.

In places where eagles hang out by the score and more all the time, getting close to them is no problem at all. They will practically let you walk right up to them.

But this is not such a place.

At first, I walked straight toward the eagle and it watched my every step.

Then I turned so that I was not walking directly towards it, but rather at an angle to the tree, but was still closing the distance between it and me with each step. Then I turned back, still at angle to the tree, until I reached a point where something told me that if I came any closer, the eagle would fly.

I raised my pocket camera.

And the eagle flew.