where eagles fly (or are tethered)

I went to the National Eagle Center in Wabasha, MN in February, which was a definite eagle-filled experience and all around good time! I guess it's about time I shared pictures of things that happened TWO MONTHS AGO.





The day began before sunrise when I woke up at 5 AM to do joint barn with Megan before we were off to Wabasha, which was a good four hours away.



I slept some of the time, but Megan and I had also gotten ourselves some Starbucks Double Shots the night before, so that kept us peppy. At one point, we left the gas station and asked Jeff how many Cokes he'd purchased. "Only three!" he replied defensively.





When we reached the Eagle Center, we met up with Fir (an old Audubon Center employee who now works at the Eagle Center) and she gave us an informal education program. Actually, she told us that she was no way no how doing ANY sort of education program since it was her day off, but we convinced forced her to teach us about eagles (especially since we are volunteer monitors for an eagle nest in Wisconsin I think, so we have to answer school group questions about the eagles).





I'm always in awe at how terrible some of the taxidermy is at other centers. Our RELC has a relatively awesome taxidermy program that is continuously training people in on how to do it, plus we make time for it, which adds up to equal tons of new artifacts that are in good shape. We don't do full body mounts, however, which are what the owls and hawks on the shelf are. These were really cool, I love full body mounts.

After the program, we were set free to explore. The center's live eagles were tethered in a room with ample light and opportunity to get good photographic shots. So I got to work.



Donald the Golden Eagle. He was brought to the center because he was hit by a car in California and broke his wing in two places. It was determined that he could not sustain flight and thus couldn't survive in the wild, and was sent to the Eagle Center from the Raptor Center



Those beautiful golden nape, or back of the neck, feathers are how the Golden Eagle got its common name





Nictitating membrane shot! The nictitating membrane is that cloudy eyelid that closes instead of the true eyelid



One of the four Bald Eagles at the center. This one is Was'aka (I believe), who was brought to the center as a fledgling with a tumor in his left eye. He had extensive surgery done on it, creating blindness, so he could not hunt for himself in the wild



Angel the Bald Eagle, was found on the ground with a broken wing in Wisconsin. She was only able to survive because she had been eating leftover scraps of fish from a heron nest. Her name is hilarious because she bites people's faces when they try to undo her tether or tie her back to the perch. She's sassy!



Was'aka again





Delicious meeses pieces



Me derpily excited to be standing next to Columbia



Nothing better than weird family portraits, right?



Megan was SUPER PSYCHED that we'd suddenly grown tiny little bodies and were handling an eagle!



I was more suspicious. Also I wasn't taking shit from my eagle. Also I want that shirt A LOT



We found more taxidermied animals to take pictures of, including ducks





Hiding in the duck forest





SOON



A clever idea to teach about the average size of an eagle aerie. The hole in the floor above looked down onto an aerial map of the area. Clearly, these were space eagles





Disgruntled otter

APPARENTLY while I was taking pictures of dead animals made to look like alive animals, there were actually really awesome things I could be taking pictures of, like myself pretending to hold another eagle (and not just the one with my tiny body). Oh well, I did get to play a game of pretend eagles with Kaitlyn in the fake eagle nest. After we were done at the center, we went to get some food at a local cowboy-esque bar.















I need to go back on a Tuesday



I will ALWAYS color with crayons. Especially dinosaurs







Solid advice



After eating our delicious food, we went to Wisconsin in search of Golden Eagles. Bald Eagles are EVERYWHERE here in Minnesota, especially around the Eagle Center because it's purposely situated on the Mississippi River, where the water flows fast enough that it's open all year round, verses icing over. This means that eagles can eat their fill of fish, so there were probably about 7,000 (approximately) Bald Eagles hanging around the center. There were even active eagle nests we could view through the center's spotting scopes! Anyways, there are a lot of Bald Eagles, but very few Golden Eagles in this neck of the woods. So we went out looking for them. It was a bit difficult telling the different between juvenile Bald Eagles and adult Golden Eagles, but we eventually found three! As well as what we think was some sort of falcon. All in all, a successful trip! We were getting pretty loopy by the end of it. On the way back to Sandstone, I was dropped off at that Italian place in the cities to join my parents for their anniversary dinner, the end of a great day.

I'm slowly updating my life, one step at a time. Tonight we're going out owl monitoring for Hawk Ridge! I'm pretty stoked. Hopefully we hear some stuff, I'm READY!