busconews.com

by Neil A. Case

“There are eagles along the Salamonie River,” a friend called and told our younger daughter. “I saw six of them today, three together in two different places.” Sara called and told me that evening, said she and her husband were going to look for the eagles the next day and asked if I’d like to ride along. She knew I would.

The temperature was below freezing the morning we went looking for the eagles, the sky was gray, there was haze in the air reducing visibility and making everything appear dull, and four inches of snow covered the ground. There were patches of snow on the roads we drove, all but a major highway we were on for a few miles.

Several flocks of small birds flew up from the roads or the sides of the roads ahead before we got to the Salamonie River. We didn’t stop to look at them. A few passed close enough to our car that we could see they were horned larks and we assumed that’s what they all were. A few crows flew over. Then we saw one other larger bird, bigger than the crows, flying erratically and low over a field by the road. A northern harrier, the first harrier I’d seen in months. “A good sign,” I said.

A larger flock of horned larks flew up. But as they flew we could see they weren’t all horned larks. Some of them had a patch of white in each wing. Snow buntings, the first of those I’d seen in several years. When I’ve seen snow buntings before I’ve often also seen Lapland longspurs. There might have been longspurs with these snow buntings but again we didn’t stop. 

There were flocks of starlings along the roads too. We didn’t stop for those either. We did stop when we saw a flock of starlings with smaller birds along one edge of the flock. Some of the smaller birds intermingled with the starlings along one side of the starlings. In the dull light they looked dark as the starlings. But when they flew, as they did frequently though only short distances, some of them showed flashes of blue. Bluebirds, of course. As we stopped some of them flew into some cedar and pine trees by the road where we could look at them through our binoculars.

We got to the Salamonie River and followed it for a few miles, as well as the road permitted. The current was swift, the water ice free and dirty brown. I thought we’d see Canada geese on the water or along the banks. But we didn’t. Not one. Nor did we see a duck. But we did see three great blue herons, each flying up river just above the water.

Several places where we passed trees we saw blue jays, flying and moving about in the trees. Where we passed trees and bushes or brush we saw cardinals and tree sparrows and dark-eyed juncos.

We had a good list of birds seen that day. For me, and for Sara and Tim, they were an antidote to winter blues brought on by days of cold, dark, gloomy weather, days when we sat inside, watched TV, complained about the weather and found fault with the state of the world.

But what about the eagles. They’re what we had come out to see, that’s what we were looking for. We saw one.  Tim spotted it. An adult, a bird with a white head and tail. It was over the river, perched on a branch of a big sycamore. That was early in our search, when we first got within sight of the river, before we got to the places where Sara had been told there were eagles. We went to both of those places, but there were no longer eagles at those places.