Eagle Banding

I got to do my first Golden Eagle banding with the Wildlife Research Institute yesterday.  Here are some pictures.

Small male Golden eagle chick

Golden eagle chick

secret Eagle ridge

big talons

eagle foot

baby golden eagle

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Happy Mother’s Day

   I’d like to wish all of the mothers out there a happy Mother’s day.  Especially my Mom who has always encouraged me to be who I am and follow my passions.  She also did a wonderful job of immersing me in nature at a young age, taking me to parks, gardens and putting me in nature camps.  Those experiences have had a long lasting and meaningful impact on me.  Thanks, Mom.

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Synchronicity

This is a common word tossed around by people in the world of dedicated nature awareness.  It is used to describe a moment where two or more very unlikely things coincide together.  But it feels like more than a random coincidence.  It feels like something special is happening and unknown energies are aligning to create a meaningful moment.  For me, this often happens after I ask the universe for the answer to a mystery that I’m stuck on.  Here is an example from today.

I put out the intention recently to become a better tracker and I asked whatever forces that may be out there to help me with this.  The pattern that I’ve experienced is that I ask for something, then forget about it, then incredible things unfold, then I remember what I had originally asked for.  There seems to be something even more special about asking for the answer to a mystery.  Like the universe is dying to tell us the answer and when the intention is put out there, it goes right to work setting up a situation where it can show it to us.

This morning as I was waiting to meet a cougar biologist that was taking me out to check carcasses, I spotted a dusty patch across the road and went over there to look for tracks.  What I found were some very strange small marks that led me to believe they were made by a pocket gopher.  The only problem is that I had a few days earlier identified some marks as pocket gopher that were much bigger than these (you can see them in “Today’s finds”).  So here is a dilemma.  A mystery that needs an answer and the intention is now put out into the universe.  I asked my friend about pocket gopher tracks and he confirmed that they are pretty small.  I still wasn’t convinced though.

This evening I went for a run a little bit later than I normally do.  It was dark and the bunnies were scurrying all over the place.  I also noticed something else scurrying across the sidewalk that was much smaller.  I ran over to look at it and it stopped scurrying and just sat there on the edge of the sidewalk.  It let me walk right up to it, kneel down, put my face within a few inches of it and once I could see its feet clearly with their long digging claws, I realized what it was.  A Botta’s pocket gopher.  After putting out the intention, the universe presented me with a live pocket gopher, one that had no fear of me and let me see its size and the way it moved.  It even let me pet it.  So now I have confirmed one mystery, and the question has been put out there for another:  What were those strange marks from ‘Today’s finds?’

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