Two Turtle Doves and 120 Eagles!

I arrived in Spokane very late on Saturday night (basically, it was Sunday if one wants to be specific about what time it was). Traveling from Eastern Time, however, made the trip even more brutal because 1am in Spokane is 4am in Lansing. Despite the long day of travel, I woke up mostly rested on Sunday and spent the morning drinking coffee, reading the paper and visiting with my folks. Then on Sunday afternoon, we went to Lake Coeur d'Alene to watch the eagles fish in the lake. During December, bald eagles have a stop over in CdA to fish and catch their breath before they continue south to California and Arizona. CdA is one of the few places in the US to see this kind of eagle action, and it was pretty cool. There is a small ferry boat that takes people out to the other end of the lake to an area called Wolf Lodge Bay. Once the boat gets close to this part of the lake, the eagles are just everywhere. And I mean everywhere! They are sitting in trees looking stoic, soaring on thermals, cruising the shore, and diving feet first and plucking fish out of the lake. And to top off the gorgeous weather and sunshine, it was a record day for eagles. the count was the highest of the season, at 120. Very cool indeed.