You've Got To Prey... Just To Make It Today

A week ago today, we went on a field trip with a local homeschool group to a wildlife refuge. We were lucky that Pops was working in the same general area and came to visit the animals with us! It was very interesting and there were many animals to see and learn about. I was VERY frustrated with myself when we got to the beginning of the tour - which was walking all the way to the back of the area to the bears - and I tried to take some pictures of grizzly bears that were 8 ft and 10 ft tall standing. Why was THAT frustrating? Because I had removed the memory card from my camera the night before to load my pictures to my computer. Grrrrr - no one to be frustrated with other than myself.

We went on most of the tour before Bump was ready to nurse - which I decided would be best undertaken in the car. After he was done, I looked in the camera bag that I had left in the car and saw that I had a spare memory card tucked inside! Wooo Hooo! So, we headed back to the group and found them looking at the birds of prey...

We then entered an aviary "hut" and the tour guide opened some garage door type windows and we were treated to some lovely Bald Eagles (or as Blossom used to call them... "Balk Eagles"!!) in the enclosure - without chain fencing or the like inhibiting the view or pictures!

Such beautiful birds... I LOVE their white feathers!

But the sibling rivalry with eagles is astounding... and makes me think that my kids' fighting is NOTHING compared to eaglets! This is a juvenile eagle - you can tell by the flecks of color in its head feathers.

This "guy" was pushed out of the nest by sibling eaglets and broke both of its wings on its fall.

This bird cannot fly as its wings are, hmmm... a bit mangled and unable to get into the right position for flying. But it hops around to get where it wants to go and seems quite resourceful!

If you have an opportunity to visit a wildlife refuge - I recommend it wholeheartedly!!