Spring Creek Basin Mustangs

Switching gears – and hair for feathers – this morning, please enjoy this juvenile bald eagle that was hanging out in some cottonwood trees near (dry) Disappointment Creek.

S/he looks like s/he dipped her/his head in some of the seeps that are producing mud-water currently, but based on this illustration, I believe s/he’s a juvenile, about 4 years old.

There were no other birds around – eagles or otherwise. I was incredibly happy that the eagle was “sticky” and allowed me a few minutes to photograph him/her from my truck.

You may not have known (I didn’t!), but before Christmas Eve, the bald eagle, while a definitive symbol of the United States of America, was not, in fact, its national bird. “On Christmas Eve, President Biden signed the legislation declaring the bald eagle the official national bird.”

We don’t have a lot of bald eagles in Disappointment Valley anymore, though I’ve been seeing them all winter between Disappointment and Dry Creek Basin (on the way to Naturita and/or Norwood). (And I’ve kicked myself a million times for not having my camera those times … though it’s harder to stop in the middle of the highway than on lonely Disappointment Road!) A generation or so ago, there must have been many, as evidenced by the title of “Where Eagles Winter: History and Legend of the Disappointment Country” by Wilma Crisp Bankston, the late mother of an up-valley resident (whose brother and sister also still own land nearby).

While we have golden eagles year ’round in the Disappointment Country, bald eagles are mostly winter visitors. It’s always a treat to see any of these magnificent birds.