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Ramblings From the Ragged Crumbling Edge Of The Reality-Based Community

Friday, March 26, 2010

So How Tough Is My Job? ver. 2010.01 

...I haven't been posting much recently because I have been simply fried when I get home in the evening. It has been hard to work up even the most half-hearted outrage about all of the crazy things going down all around us and, I have to admit, I find myself almost limp with relief that the health care bill finally passed, regardless of its faults and failings, because it means so much to the future welfare of my second-born child as he approached adulthood. A couple of nights ago, however, I was jolted out of my doldrums by the news that 'we have an egg'...

That statement makes no sense unless you understand that my lovely bride has been involved for several years in the maintenance of a video camera aimed at a bald eagle nest perched above Odell Lake at the crest of the central Orygun Cascades several miles to the west of our humble abode. Wednesday evening the female laid an egg (a phrase that means good things in eagle circles) and the small world of people who love to watch such things on intertube feeds - yes, there is such a world - simply burst into flames from the excitement of seeing a potential new bald eagle in a relatively warm, dry nest. Then came Thursday night and this morning and a Winter Weather Advisory for the Central Orygun Cascades,
and what started out as a classic picture of a mommy bird (or, in this case, daddy bird, because they switch off on incubation duty) began to look like the sort of job that I really would have to think hard about accepting...

Parenting is hard enough as it is; it doesn't need to be made harder by late-season snow storms that lay down several inches of snow in the 'nursery'. At the same time, it does provide me with an intriguing perspective on how to evaluate all those perceived problems that I might otherwise think afflict my own life. I didn't manage any screen captures in the pre-noon hours when the storm was at its most intense, but I must confess that I pity any new visitor that might have stumbled onto the live video feed this morning; the shock and confusion of stumbling upon a live video feed of what appeared to be a dead eagle laying buried in a snow-covered nest would have created an ugly moment of repulsion and hate in the heart of a casual first time visitor...

For good or ill, though, we 'have an egg'. The nest camera (which provides a feed to a bald eagle exhibit at Portland's Washington Park Zoo) failed last year almost at the very moment that the baby eagle of the year was about to fledge (courtesy of a big thunderstorm that apparently zapped the system). There's a new camera in place this year - courtesy of a long story that I have been assured can never be told - and it has infrared capability so that nest activity can be seen all day and all night. If you would like to join that strange small world of eagle nest peeping Tom's, you can do so all day or all night...

Who knows; maybe I can start a Friday Eagle Blogging thread.
Posted by: Jack K. / 7:26 PM 4 comments

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