With the finding of the bald eagle yesterday it meant that Ed and I didn't have to try to press looking for another eagle, but we still wanted to go look for other predators. We heard great northern owls during the night and knew other raptors were around. An osprey had been spotted near our camp, so there was more to find. This morning we went hiking near the foot of the dam, and went all the way back downriver as far as White Spring. It was 20 degrees and very brisk, but Ed and I enjoyed it. The wind was another matter. It was blowing about 20-30 miles an hour and we were hooded up.
Ed getting bundled up. There temp was like yesterday but the wind was kicking up. It was making us cinch up.
Me getting my jollies putting my hand in the water. I was suprised, it wasn't as cold as I thought it was going to be. Maybe because of the water coming the dam generators. Anyway, not as bad as I thought.
After a 2 mile walk downriver from the dam we found another treasure. Right there, in the trees, another raptor, watching another fisherman. See it? Don't worry, we didn't either. We were scanning along with our field glasses and only saw it when he moved. It was....
....A Cooper's hawk. Looked like a male from the markings. He was a fair sized hawk, guessing about 5-10 pounds and around 18 inches max. He was gazing the river watching for his morning meal. He sat on that limb for about 30 minutes, until he took off, distrurbed by a fishing boat that got too close to him. He went into the trees and disappeared. His markings were so good that even though I followed him in I still couldn't find him.
White Springs. This feeds into Bull Shoals lake, interestingly enough, right from the rocks. What you see is the start of the spring. Where the spring comes from the bottom of the picture is not another stream, but.....
...right out of the rocks. The stream is fed from somewhere up the mountain, and this is where it comes out. You could drink out of this if you wanted to. I wasn't thisty, though :).At this time Ed and I were finished for the day. It was a great time, we were successful. We had our eagle yesterday and a fine Cooper's hawk today. We decided to break camp again and went to the visitor's center to see if we could use their Internet, but it was down again. It didn't matter though. It was a beautiful day and the view from the center was great.
The view of the dam from the visitors center. During the day the cement heats up and creates a thermal that the vultures use to start climbing. In the afternoon there were a hundred vultures circling, rising on the thermals.
The circling vultures. They made quite a picture.
By this time Ed and I were done. We tried to get to the other side of the lake to find the eagles nest but no dice. There wasn't a road into there, but the road bent backward to the center of town. Still, a success. We found a place that served ice cream and had a double scoop sugar cone. Turned out they were home made. Incredibly delicious. Even the wrong road became the right road. Enjoying our cones we headed back to the camp for the last night. We barbequed, lit another fire, and enjoyed relaxing on the last day of 2008. Leaving the next day.
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