Today one of the gods is back where he belongs. THOR, the God of Thunder according to Norse mythology, was released today about two weeks after he'd been hit by a car (see his story in an earlier post below). A great group of people came to send him off, the Eagle Posse from the Draper Museum of Natural History at the Buffalo Bill Historical Center in Cody. We are all working on monitoring eagle nests in various locations to document the birth and fledging of the resident babies. These people, myself included for the first time this year, spend hours just sitting and making notes on the happenings in the various nests every 15 minutes or whenever there's an interesting happening there. Most of the nests already have babies hatched, unfortunately some have already lost them to either predators or unforseen problems. So far my nest, one I'm sharing with other watchers, is doing just fine altho we don't know exactly how many have hatched. Golden eagles usually lay two eggs and in a good year both of them will fledge.
The lower photo was taken by Anne Hay at the place where THOR was released. My wildlife photographer friend, Matthew Riebel (see links) took the others. This magnificent bird flew away with great strength and will hopefully find a mate in the next couple of years and begin his own family.
It was fun, as always to see one of your successes head for freedom..
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