IT DIVED INTO THE RIVER'S CANYON
My wife and I, several years ago, decided to take our daughter(5-years old) to Yosemite: we always would go Highway 120, it's a more scenic route. We left Foster City about 5 a.m. and arrived in the park around 10 a.m., we made several stops on the way.
We heard about bald eagles, but have never seen one in California. When we were in Alaska, we saw many flying around; but on this trip to Yosemite, near the Tuolumne River, a Bald Eagle high over the river was circling. It had a wingspread that looked six feet wide, a white head, and white tail feathers.
This eagle then dived into the river's canyon, with the speed of a jet, so it seemed. When he came up, out of the canyon, it was holding a trout, tightly, in his talons. The eagle flew over to a conifer tree and landed. After landing on a limb, which bent with the bird's weight, the eagle raised it's white head, looked around, lowered it's head, and ripped off a piece of the fish and ate it.
After the bird finished eating, it flapped its huge wings, and, within a few minutes, flew out of the tree; with each movements of its wings, the bird gained a height to a point where the sun reflected off of its head, which, from our viewpoint, the head gave the appearance of being featherless.
Seeing this bird in California, for the first time, made us wonder what it is doing this far south. The current range of the bald eagles are in the northern part of California. From what we can gather, before 1940, the range of the bald eagle was all the way to Mexico, but since their southern habitat was destroyed by civilization and by bird hunters, the eagles moved up north.
In the past, a nest of bald eagles were spotted near Lake Tahoe.They were at the top of a tree in a nest near a campground. Because this was taking place in a naational forest, the federal authorities observed them all summer. Before this time, a bald eagel was found at Pinecrest, California, with a broken wing.
After the wing was fixed and the bird could fly, it was set free--the bird was never seen again. Therefore, when you see a bird with a head that looks bald, tail feathers that are white, and quick darting eyes, that seem to be taking everything in, you might have seen a bald eagle, our national bird.
After the eagle flew away and was not in sight anymore, we climbed back into our vehicle and continued our trip into Yosemite. Already our trip to Yosemite was worth the time and effort; because we will never know if we would have another chance to see a bald eagle up close.
