Monday, February 9, 2009

Showing off

I’m just totally showing off here but I have just seen a sight that left me with mouth agape for quite a while until i shut it and sort of whooped round the courtyard for a bit. There was a golden eagle being mocked my two ravens right over the house. Usually I don’t bother to get either camera or binoculars in theses situations because by the time I get out again either the batteries are flat, or the camera is bust or, more usually, anything interesting has already happened. But because the eagle kept spiralling and the ravens, in shifts, kept flying up to mock it and then plummeting down again I rushed inside and got the binoculars. The eagle was a massive thing; ravens aren’t small but they looked really puny against the eagle. Anyway, after a bit the ravens got bored and I was just about to ease my aching neck into the vertical again when without a moment’s warning the eagle closed it’s wings and dived straight downwards. Not wishing to lose sight of it I kept it in the binoculars and followed it down and BADDABOOM! It smashed right into a largish bird, a bit bigger than your regular pigeon I’d say, maybe a woodpigeon. Then the eagle opened it’s wings like a bloody parachute and stopped in mid-air flapped a couple of times to gain a bit of height, because by this time I could almost see it’s nose hairs and soared off up to casteluzzo, the bump on the side of the mountain. Meanwhile lots of feathers drifted down like in the cartoons but I didn’t see where they went to go and collect any to tell what the prey was. Talk about luck. Even if I had put the binoculars down I would still have seen the action but to get it all in close-up was amazing. I am now going to have to read up on golden eagles because I didn’t know eagles attacked birds in flight. So much to learn, so little time.

Full moon tonight so sleep out night!! Yay! Forecast is excellent, starry night, the deer are barking already in the woods so have just finished putting the hammock up in the top field just next to the deer path and I’m going to get a photo tonight if I have to stay awake all night. One has to be positive about these things.

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