Ethel is back!

Ethel was back in her favorite spot this afternoon....the second light post beyond the Western high rise, on the South side of the bridge. Does this mean that she has an eaglet in the nest in the Arboretum? Eaglets? Whatever the case, there she was, watching for an unsuspecting salmon to pass under the bridge....dinner for the Eagle family. The bridge will close for the weekend, which will give Ethel and Eddie 54 hours of peace and traffic-free quiet from 11 pm Friday until 5 am on Monday. Perhaps later in the summer we will catch sight of the youngster, learning to fly.

Quiet week

Haven't seen the eagles since watching Ernest catch a salmon dinner on Easter Sunday. But we have not been over the bridge except for a short trip this Tuesday. And while neither of the eagles was there, it was a massive convention of blue herons on the log booms by the University Stadium. Every log was filled with herons shoulder to shoulder. There must have been at least a hundred of them. During the upcoming weeks we hope to see more of Ethel and Ernest, assuming they very well may be feeding a hungry family fairly soon. I will keep you posted.

Ernest Fishing on Easter Sunday

This morning, after no sightings of Ethel nor Ernest for a couple of weeks again, we just saw Ernest swooping into Lake Washington near the north fountain by the 520 Bridge. And just as we approached that part of the highway Ernest suddenly swooped down once more and came up with a big salmon for Easter breakfast! Undoubtedly he will share the bounty with Ethel, who we now assume is quite certainly sitting on eggs in the nest in the Arboretum, and is probably very hungry. It takes about 35 days from the time she lays the first egg sometime in March until the first baby eaglet hatches. So the time may be getting fairly close when the blessed event will occur. The nest itself is well hidden from public view.....eagles are good at finding such out of sight locations to better protect the eggs, then the eaglets. But once the eggs hatch we expect to see a frenzy of activity as the parents frantically feed their ravenous youngster or youngsters. But it will be later in the summer before the baby eagles are ready to fly. Perhaps sometime in late July.

We had just been talking about how Ernest is NOT Eddie. Eddie held court upon the light posts of the 520 Bridge nearly all day every day, and Ethel was there nearly as often. Ernest, however, is his own guy. He occasionally perches on the exact same light post as Eddie did, but we are lucky to catch sight of him there. Nevertheless Ernest and Ethel make a fascinating pair. They are "our" eagles.