The next part of the day came to be kind of rough, yet it wasn’t as saddening as one might think. I shared photos yesterday of the eagle’s foot that we got in. Well, that foot was attached to an eagle who was in very bad shape. From the past tense you can sense that the eagle is no longer with us. S/he was still alive when I got in this morning, and we gathered up the equipment for doing a blood draw and got every thing ready to tube and feed the bird. Collecting the eagle, we could tell that it was not doing well this morning, it eyes were fluttering without blinking, generally a sign that the eagle is giving up the ghost. We quickly took s/him into the treatment room and tried to get blood drawn fast but the vein was very thready that I was going for. Deciding to skip that we moved onto getting ready to do subcutaneous fluids as we both thought that s/he wasn’t strong enough for oral fluids, I was holding the eagle while Shona went and set up another carrier with a heating pad. The eagle unfortunately died in my arms as we were waiting for fluids to warm. It was one of those, man… but whew... we did what we could to make the eagle comfortable in the last days.
The rest of work went as normal, cleaning, running errands, setting up an aviary, cleaning another patch of the warehouse floor. Before it got too late I decided I wanted to get out and enjoy some of the beautiful sunshine we were having today. So I skipped out a little after 3:30 only to notice that the pond behind the house we look out across had an eagle sitting beside it. Amazing, another eagle just hanging out, of course this time I was able to snap a few pictures before I left the Hollow.
Using the digital zoom, of course it looses some of the details and isn’t that great.
Eagle sitting by pond.
I headed to town; thought I would see if Jason wanted to go hang out and go for a walk, but he must have been on an adventure of his own. So Guinness and I headed out. I normally ask him where he wants to go, but a lot of the time he isn’t much of a helper. Today I was waiting for clues from him, as we approached some of our normal haunts he just didn’t seem interested on those areas. So I kept going. When I got by the lighthouse he seemed quite excited. I think he did a great job at picking a location today!
We headed out towards the lighthouse, and when we got to the point by the lighthouse, the tide going out, was teaming with life. Many different shorebirds/seabirds, gulls, and even sea lions! How stoked was I. I sat down at the edge of the cliff (of course this made Guinness antsy) to watch the wildlife. I could hear the sea lions out on the rocks off the point. It was absolutely amazing! The Oyster catchers were singing and chasing one another, loons paddling around feeding, teams of surfbirds taking flight and landing, cormorants flying through, and gulls laughing at one another. There was even a red-tailed hawk who was playing over the grass land areas.
The biggest sea lion I saw, the only one I could identify as truly being a sea lion. I would say there were 6 around (but again, some I couldn’t tell you from where I was and where they were if they were just harbor seals, but I feel very unlikely).
Oyster catchers, one took off and another shortly followed.
A gull and a loon
A panoramic from the point
This photo took on a very yellow tint. Don’t know why, but I am going to leave it.
After about 15 minutes, Guinness and I headed out the cliff path that I normally run, but I was in my work garb and really didn’t feel like a run today. My mind was racing while I was walking. It seemed like as soon as I started to move again, so did my mind. I recently had a facebook IM conversation with a friend very dear to me and we were discussing Samsara, Karma, and meditation. I asked him, how do you get your mind to stop when you are meditating? He was telling me that sometimes that isn’t always the point; it can be to let the mind just go so that way it isn’t the constant running on when you are trying to focus. So, I just let it go for a few minutes. The more I walked and thought, the clearer things came, and soon I was able to be back just in the moment. I couldn’t believe it. As Guinness and I got to our turn around point, we sat down and just took things in. I closed my eyes, warmed by the sunlight, cooled by the light breeze, and drowned in the sound of waves crashing. Guinness sat down beside me and began to chew on a stick. We stayed a little longer, and played with the camera to take some pictures. The sun was soon behind the clouds just above the mountains, so we headed back towards the lighthouse to go home. I wanted to get some more photos when we got back towards the beginning of the path as most of the sky was pretty shades of pinks and purples, but I had already taken so many pictures that I had drained my battery.
Cirrus clouds and flat water.
Looking back at the lighthouse
The flat water with light wave crashes, I look so close but I am probably 30 feet up a cliff
Guinness gives me kisses.
Guinness eats the sun!!!
Heading back towards the car, he smelled foxes and so do I.
The moon shining down.
Pinks and purples over Vancouver
I hope you enjoyed the picture. It was a great day and a reminder that life IS good! Now it is time to get some food in my belly and probably head out on the town tonight as it is Wednesday for Herb’s Karaoke (no, I don’t sing but some of my friends do, and quite well).
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