Yesterday, during a welcome break in the storms, Shadow brought his lovely Jackie a fish for an early lunch. As always, she knew long before he arrived that he had a fish, so she started claiming it as “mine, mine, mine…” But when Shadow arrived, he apparently had not finished taste-testing the fish, so he wouldn’t let it go. As might be expected, Jackie insisted. A few ‘friendly’ tugs and a couple snappy beaks, and then Shadow seemed to figure out who would eventually win. So, he released the fish to Jackie and, being a smart eagle, he took off out the back door while she ate.
As soon as she finished her lunch, making sure not a single tidbit escaped, Jackie announced she was leaving and flew off the front porch…and within a couple minutes, Shadow came back to take over egg-sitting duty. He arranged the nest bowl fluff until it was just right and settled in to incubate the eggs…ah, but, something wasn’t working. He did more rearranging and a little more repositioning and finally was able to nestle down tight into the nest bowl.
When Jackie returned, she brought a little branchy stick with her…and first placed it right on Shadow’s back. Before he even got off the eggs, Shadow grabbed the other end of the stick and announced he would be in charge of properly placing it. As often as Jackie wins the fish fights, Shadow wins the stick struggles, so Jackie let him claim the stick. He hopped up and knew right where to put it. He fit it in exactly where it was meant to be and then left Jackie to her shift.
…but that stick was not an easy one to deal with. During Shadow’s next egg-duty, he noticed the stick standing where he had placed it, and he immediately had to get off the eggs to go and correct an obvious mis-location. He fiddled the stick over this way…nope…and then twisted it over that way…that’s not it either…and then he decided to put it in the nest bowl on top of the eggs. But somehow that didn’t seem quite right. He eventually had to fetch the stick out of the nest bowl and try a few new placements before being satisfied that it was done properly. Only then could he rest and sit calmly back down on the eggs for the rest of his shift.
Jackie was on duty for the night when the storm returned for another round. Snuggled down on her eggs, she slept quite peacefully while the storm slowly covered her in a thick blanket of snow. (Don’t worry, she has over 7000 waterproof feathers and a thick layer of down under those to keep her warm and dry.) By the time Jackie woke to roll the eggs, she had to crack off the snowy layer and shake herself clean. Without missing a beat, she moved around to a new position, and settled in again-as the perfect protective cover for her precious eggs.
Thank you to all of you for caring about Jackie and Shadow and for being willing to watch and learn about their daily lives in our beautiful southern California mountain forest.
Sandy
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Негізгі бет 1-16-2023 A Fish Fight, A Stick Struggle And A Blanket Of Snow…
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