July 11 & 12

Abby and Was'aka

We had seen an ad for the National Eagle Center in Wabasha MN so decided to go up and see it. They claimed to have live eagles you could observe, and if you know Liz observing birds is right down her alley. Wabasha was a nice little community, and happens to be the town that the movie “Grumpy Old Men” was set. The center is on the Mississippi River, and they have a very descriptive display of Eagle habitat, and why this part of the river has so many of them. They explained that this part of the river is at the juncture of two rivers, and is just after a very wide part of the Mississippi called Lake Pepin. This results in turbulence and an increase in temperature, which keeps the river from freezing in winter, allowing Eagles to keep fishing. The possibility of seeing an Eagle in flight, while certain, was not the attraction however. The center had 5 eagles and they allowed us to get extremely close to them!

Abby and Columbia

In a meeting room, one of their staff, gave at least an hour’s presentation, including time with 3 eagles, while they ate their lunch. They used 4 bald eagles, and one golden. Golden eagles feed more like a hawk eating rabbits, and similar animals. Bald eagles prefer fish. Besides her prepared talk, kids and adults asked questions

All these eagles were rescues, some from auto accidents, some from things such as lead poisoning. The golden came from FL and one of the bald eagles came from CA. Each one of the m suffers from some injury, which prevents them from being returned to the wild. We learned eagles have been off the endangered species list for some time, and that their claws exert 400 psi of force when they are grasping their meal. The handlers wear double gloves, for protection, and despite the heavy leather they are made of, they don’t last a year. All feathers are recovered and sent to a federal center, where native Americans can apply for them for costuming.

We continued to be amazed that we were encouraged to get close to the birds, and to take as many pictures as we liked. I shot about 80, and can’t manage to edit more than half of them out. Next to the presentation room was a space with 5 or six perches near the ground, and we walked among the birds, took their pictures, and asked questions of the staff that was in the room with us. The birds were tethered to a leather lead, and in the picture, you see of Liz and I there was only that lead, in the handlers hand, keeping the bird from flying. It was really cool to be able to examine these fine animals so closely.

Thursday, was a day of relaxing and tending to a few chores. Tomorrow we head up to Red Wing, and then St. Paul for the weekend.

 And.... Check back a couple of days, I've posted some pictures of the bluffs.