Jordan Lake. The great blue heron has special feathers on its chest. These feathers grow continuously and they fray and almost make a powder as they grow out. The heron grabs a bit of these white powder feathers and uses them as a washcloth to remove dirt and oil from its feathers.

Jordan Lake. On yesterday’s cruise Captain Doug and I came upon this fledgling bald eagle, one of this year’s babies. We ever so gently floated past it. For its part of the interaction, the youngster seemed to decide that we just weren’t a probable food source and so we got ignored. Which was just fine with us.

fledgling bald eagle

Jordan Lake. The tufted titmouse was quite proud of his acorn. He showed it off in one direction and then to make sure you saw that he had it, he turned his head and showed it off from another direction. Then the titmouse looked at me and said “oh you do see my acorn don’t you!” Then he cocked his head at a jaunty angle and smiled at the world because he did indeed have one beautiful acorn.

Jordan Lake. Watch lower left hand corner! A pair of 3-year-old bald eagles realized an osprey, sitting across the cove, had a fish. Of course the eaglets were certain that they should have that fish. The chase was on. First clip in video is at normal speed and is followed with a very slow speed so you can actually see the osprey! What a wild chase.

Jordan Lake. The great egret came floating in about 50 feet above the water when it suddenly headed down and started to dance on the surface. He was looking hard to his left but I couldn’t see what had his attention. He danced a moment or two and then headed back to the shoreline.