Day 105, Year 8: Family and Birds
Date: Saturday, February 16, 2013
Weather: Temperature Cooling Down
Location: Home of Mary Ellen and Lee French, Bonita Springs, Florida
No. I’m not trying to say that family is for the birds. But we did spend our day getting together with family and on the way we stopped to view a bald eagles nest with babies and a momma and poppa named Ozzie and Harriet. This pair of mature bald eagles have nested in the same very tall pine tree in North Fort Myers since 2006-2007 and have been in the area even longer. They were given their names in 2006 when they moved to the tall pine tree on the property of Dick Pritchard Real Estate. This year DPRE decided to install a camera that films the birds around the clock and streams it to a site on the internet. A reader of our logs alerted us to the eagles when she read that we were headed to Fort Myers to visit. Thanks, Leigh Ann. The eagles reside in Fort Myers from October to April and what a show they put on for us today. I thought we would only see the nest and maybe get a peek at the mom. But instead we got to watch Harriet bob up and down in the nest as she was tearing pieces of a fish apart to feed her babies. We knew this because Mary Ellen was watching it on her iPhone as we stood there watching it live. It was hard to get a photo of her as mostly her tail feathers were up in the air as she worked. But then Ozzie flew in to the top of nearby dead tree. He sat at the top of the tree for quite some time posing for all the cameras snapping away. Then he flew to the pine tree with the nest and sat down right next to the camera which is positioned just above the nest. Harriet stopped working and the two eagles looked like they were having a conversation. Then Harriet flew to another tree to pose for us and Ozzie stayed with the nest watching the babies. It was a fabulous viewing. If you are interested in watching the two babies in the nest, go to:
http://www.ustream.tv/SouthwestFloridaEagleCam
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| 130216 Day 105b Florida Visiit 2013–Bald Eagles |
We spent the remainder of the afternoon at Stacey and Mike Dickey’s home in North Fort Myers. Stacey is Mark’s brother Steve’s daughter and she lives just around the corner from the bald eagle nest. Steve’s other daughter, Kristi, and her husband Nate and two little boys (Hayden and Caleb) were there, as well as Stacey’s two children, Trent and Katie. Lee and Mary Ellen took us and Mark’s sister Jeanie and significant other, Tom, came. Jeanie’s son Jimmy and Mary Ellen and Lee’s son Danny both came a little later in the afternoon. We had great food and great fun just being together. The last time we saw Steve’s grandchildren was in April of 2008 when we flew through here on our way back to Australia. Trent is now 14, Katie is 10, Hayden is 5, and Caleb is 2. They have never met any of our grandchildren, so we are going to have to find a way this whole family together one of these days.
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| 130216 Day 105a Florida Visit 2013–Handley Family Get Together |
