A WILD SWAN CHASE, AND A BLACK BALD EAGLE

BLACK-PHASE BALD EAGLE

NAMEKAGON RIVER NORTH OF HAYWARD

Friday, 8:30 AM.  26 degrees F, wind N, calm.  the sky is azure blue, the atmosphere crystal clear.  The humidity is 82% and the barometer 30.01".  A "Canadian clipper," a short mini-blizzard, came roaring through late yesterday afternoon and into the evening, and left us with an additional 3"-4"of new snow,  rendering the tired old winter pristine again.  Luckily we got home yesterday before it hit.
   Our trip down to Madison was uneventful, we accomplished our business readily and then decided to go the long way home, taking US Hwy. 12 northwest out of Madison to I 90-94 and on up to Hudson, Wisconsin, across the Saint Croix River from Minneapolis-St. Paul. The objective was to see large flocks of Trumpeter swans that for many years have overwintered there.  That turned out to be a "wild swan chase," as the river and lake were all but frozen solid.  Should have known.
  However, all these perambulations gave us the opportunity to really assess the advance of spring in Wisconsin, from north to south and from south to west.  I hate to tell you this, but spring is not as yet to be found anywhere in Wisconsin (I doubt even Milwaukee).  The Wisconsin River was frozen solid everywhere we crossed until our last view of it around Portage, which is about an hour north of Madison.  The state is still snowbound at least to Wausau, which is about mid-state, and then snow cover decreases until there was nothing but a few snow piles left  in Madison, but it was still winter there, although finally getting above freezing during the day.  We did see some open stretches of water on the Namekagon River around Hayward, but that was very unusual.  And we saw a very large flock of turkeys in the same stretch along State Hwy. 63.
   But the best part of the trip was seeing the black-phase bald eagle (above photo) around Mercer on the trip down to Madison.  This bird was still a juvenile, by what I have read probably a three year old.  Younger juveniles have primarily mixed brown and white feathers, and the adults have brownish body plumage. The black phase usually, from what I have read and seen, does not usually have distinct white plumage on head and tail, and its beak and eyes would not as yet be yellow.  This was a spectacularly beautiful eagle and we were fortunate to have spotted it while driving.  We did make a U-turn to go back and take photos.

   He clasps the crags with crooked hands;
   Close to the sun in lonely lands,
   Ring'd with the azure world, he stands.

   The wrinkled sea beneath him crawls;
   He watches from his mountain walls,
   And like a thunder-bolt he falls.
                   -Tennyson-