Eagle Festival

Because of the pandemic, the humans have cancelled their late winter Merrimack River Eagle Festival. The Woodpile decided to organize their own Eagle Festival for critters. The return of eagles to the Merrimack River over the past twenty years has been one of the great environmental success stories. (Although, I hear the fish population disagrees!) It took the humans decades to clean up the water in the river and make it safe for wildlife again. In recent years the eagles have started fishing in the nearby ponds. We occasionally see them on the pond the Woodpile overlooks.

The mayor dropped by my burrow to talk local politics over coffee. After a while he finally got around to the real reason for the visit. He wanted me to sponsor a competition for the festival by putting up a $100 in prize money. The competition would be who could photograph the most number of different eagles between sunrise and sunset. Mrs. Spot had agreed to be the judge for the competition. I didn’t want to disappoint my old school teacher Mrs. Spot so I said yes.

After the mayor left, I ran to the closet and got out my binoculars and cleaned the lens. I dropped by Vinnie’s lab and asked to borrow his super telephoto camera lens he had in development. Next stop was Mom’s place to ask her to be my chauffeur driver for the day. I needed to visited as many eagle hotspots as possible. I had every intention of winning this competition and keeping my hard earned money!

The night before the festival, I set my alarm clock for the crack of dawn. Early on the morning of the big day, I brewed a gallon of coffee, bought two dozen deep fried snow donuts, and loaded my equipment into Mom’s car. The plan was to start at the mouth of the Merrimack River where it empties into the Atlantic ocean and work our way up river. First stop was Salisbury Beach State Reservation.

I found a log washed up on the beach that made a perfect vantage point for searching for eagles.

I heard a commotion on the rocks (known as "Badgers Rock") where the seals were sunning themselves. I found my first eagle of the day.

Next stop was some mud flats that eagles are known to hang out at. We were rewarded with the sight of this beautiful mature bald eagle.

 

These two immature bald eagles are trying to figure out how to catch the fish under the ice.

 WHO WON?

Suffice to say, I got the most eagle photos that day. I went to Mrs. Spot to collect my reward. According to Mrs. Spot, since I was sponsoring the competition I was disqualified from competing!