Eagle Viewing

Eagle watching is an annual affair in Nova Scotia. Each year the Sheffield Mills Community Association and the Blomidon Naturalist Society host  Eagle Watch Weekends in the Annapolis Valley in late January early February. This is one such weekend so we gathered the family together to headed out to have some fun. You should get there between 8 and 10 am to see the most eagles as that is when the local chicken farmers feed them, but we are a large family and it is difficult to get everyone organized that early on Saturday morning. So we arrived about 11 and managed to see several of the beautiful birds without the crowds in the official "viewing areas". My pictures are not the best as I have a simple point and shoot Casio Exilim camera - a new SLR camera is on my want list for our great adventure. I plan to go and take lessons and learn a bit about photography after I get the camera.

As we drove by we spotted several bald eagles and red-tailed hawks in these trees, with not a person in sight. Perfect.

The big birds were smart enough to stay high in the trees and were not bothered by our presence.

A little further down the road we spotted eagles having lunch in a farm field. These two did not seem pleased to share.

So the poor fellow stayed to one side as another came to join the group.

They weren't letting him too close to the food either.

The eagles were no longer at the official viewing site but some photographers were still photographing a few flying in the distance.

Then it was off to enjoy the pancake lunch offered by the Sheffield Community Association. Arch is missing from the picture as he stayed home with a cold.

After lunch some of us went shopping at Frenchy's in Coldbrook :). The dads took the kids to the Robot Programming Competition at Acadia University. Jonah, our lego building robot fanatic, is 8, one year short of being able to enter the competition so he contented himself building a robot from the boxes of lego that were at the entrance to the competition floor.

There were a lot of competitors.

We will miss these family outings next winter.