EAGLE DAYS

From February to early March most years, bald eagles' migration path pauses along a stretch of the Mississippi River not far north of here. Apparently the fishing is good. The Missouri Department of Conservation has a very nice visitors center there with exhibits, events and walkways along the river. They did special presentations this weekend. 

The center cares for several eagles who had injuries and are no longer up to life in the wild. It's hard to appreciate the size and strength of those talons from a photo. We saw a few birds out in the trees but they were so far away they looked like just a smudge, even using my longest lens.         

 

The Only &@*&# Eagle We Could Find

There is a flyway along the Mississippi River for bald eagles, running from Minnesota to Louisiana.  From late December to early March, they hang out a bit upstream from STL, around Alton, Illinois, (birthplace of Miles Davis) and then further up the Mississippi and Illinois Rivers. We went a long way up and down the river and didn't see any except this semi-domesticated one in the Alton Visitor's Center. The bird was named Liberty, apt enough for current American culture.

Sorry for no post yesterday, I've been dragging. I've hardly been able to talk for more than a week, Since Tuesday I've had a deep, mid-chest cough hacking up mucus. I thought I had bronchitis and it would go away. Carolyn Crowe, RN, my personal guardian angel, reminded me that at my age it could be pneumonia and I should get checked. "But it's your body," she concluded. I have to take such statements seriously. If I didn't and something bad happened, she  would have to clean up the mess.

So I went to what in this country we call an urgent care office. Son of a gun, I do have pneumonia. They prescribed an antibiotic, an expectorant and an asthma-style inhaler. As the prez says, we'll see.