My owl friends: Eagles,Eagles and more Eagles!

A beautiful Tuesday morning! The sun was out and I had some free time today. I could do my taxes or I could go play. Hmmmm..... play won hands down! So first Hazel and I did a fun hike at Dry Creek. I dropped her off at home, grabbed my camera and headed out. I had seen a post the other day on a birding website that there were some bald eagles hanging out at Golden Ponds in Longmont. As I drove up there, the clouds started rolling in and the temperatures were dropping. The forecast called for some snow in the afternoon, so I hustled up there as fast as I could.
I was barely out of the car when I spotted a couple of eagles across the pond. I needed to get closer, so I followed the path around the pond towards them. Just as I got close enough, the adult baldie dove down but missed the fish she was going for.

Then this juvenile baldie dove down and grabbed the fish. Boy was mom pissed that her kid embarrassed her. She flew after the youngster trying to steal the fish but had no luck.

The wind had picked up and I was freezing my butt off. But just as I started to head for the car all hell broke loose. 3 of the eagles decided to chase a ring billed gull. They almost got him but he was too fast! That was crazy! I have never seen that before! Not sure if they wanted to eat him or just chase him away but it was cool!

I saw about 6 eagles today. There were a couple of adults, a couple of juveniles and a couple of sub-adults. This guy below is a sub adult. You can see the head is almost all white, so he's close to adulthood. It take about 4-5 years for a bald eagle to mature and the young will stay with their parents during those years.

It was getting cloudier which meant the light was terrible. Plus I was very, very cold! But I grabbed one last fun shot of mom and one of the kids soaring through the air.

Finally I pulled myself away and headed home. I cranked up the heater and slowly thawed out. I realized I was gonna drive by my owl friends, so I stopped by to say hi.
Look closely and you can see Cher is tucked in her nest keeping her eggs warm.