... "tomorrow morning ... ??? ... how early, dad, i need to sleep" ... so it was eight o'clock that i picked up liz and we headed over to the sebasticook river where it once quite literally defined the town of benton falls, maine ... due to the heavy rain yesterday it was a rather soggy walk though the wetland to get to the river bank ...
... "i'm going to count 'em, dad" ...
... working from south to north with her binoculars, liz spotted forty-two eagles ... there were several more flying by, but she only counted the ones in the trees ... we both figure that there were more she couldn't see through the dense foliage, and most likely there was an equal number of birds out of sight around the bend in the river ...
... cleaning up for another day of fishing and feasting, i suppose ...
... glance over my shoulder and a quick snap, not bad considering it was taken with what is technically an "antique," my manual-focus manual-aperture nikkor 300mm ...
... for those fascinated with such things, here's the "beast, the "stovepipe," the "say, is that a lens or are you just wicked happy to see me" ... classic built-like-a-tank construction, and, yes, weighs like an big o'l sherman, too ... !!! ... not even in the ballpark when it comes to modern optical standards, but i can live with that for the bargain that it was ...
... these little bugs creeped the sh*t out of us ... !!! ... they were formed up in this little crowd, but whenever i got within five or six feet as a group they would change the shape of their assemblage and move away from me ... in the movies this is the sort of thing that when you lean close they jump up and enter your body through your ears—i kept my distance ...
... we hiked down the east bank of the river ... actually, it was so steep that the descent was more of a controlled fall ... didn't see many eagles from that vantage, but we did find a really cool hundred-plus year old dump site ... liz scavenged up some broken pieces of colored glass, she's going to try to melt them into beads ...
... as we drove south we noticed this eagle perched along the river ... we were able to observe it for quite awhile from a distance of less than seventy-feet ...
... it was fully aware of us, but seemed to remain comfortable in our presence ...
... eagles're way cool, absolutely, but after spending an hour watching them with liz it was still this expression was the best thing i saw ...
