Eagle Days – 1/18/2014

Each year, the Missouri Department of Conservation celebrates Eagle Days. Its a chance to get out with like minded people and view Eagles in their natural habitat. We have been to official events before, but this year decided to strike out on our own along the river and just see what we saw.

We started out the morning with a visit to a restaurant that the kids have been asking us a lot about recently, IHOP. It was a popular breakfast destination and we had a few minute wait before we were able to get a table. While we were waiting, we noticed a pancake eating challenge. The current record at the location was 22 pancakes. Of course, that got us talking and boasting about how we could easily eat 24 pancakes. Of course, I knew it was unlikely that I could actually beat it or would feel good afterwords whether I beat it or not. Corvin was convinced he could be famous. In the end, we each got normal breakfast.

This is Corvin after trying to eat the 3 pancakes that came with his meal. He didn’t finish them!  From breakfast, we decided to head up Highway 79, on the west side of the Mississippi river.  We made a stop at Lock and Dam #25 (Sandy Chute) and walked out to a point to look. The river was almost completely frozen over upstream of the dam and mostly unfrozen below the dam. The eagles were moving well, but we didn’t get any action shots of them going to the water.

This shot above was taken with an eagle leaving its perch to fly around. While we where there, it started lightly snowing. We decided to pack up and head farther north to Clarksville Missouri. The drive was slow and pleasant. They have another Lock there and we thought we would give it a try.

Clarksville has a very inviting river town. We got a kick out of the riverfront. While Danelle was down at the riverfront taking photos of eagles, I did my best to entertain the kids so she could focus on her photos. She took several hundred photos that all seemed too good to purge. In the end, the album had over 300 photos. There are lots of shots of birds plucking up fish out of the river!

Eventually, the kids and I wandered down to where all the other people were. We found a staircase with seats for looking out on the river. The kids took turns holding onto the railing and kicking ice back into the river.

Eagles were not the only birds catching fish!

This was a perfect way to spend a cold winter day as a family!

Album

Hogan Haake