Bald Eagles...correction

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(Park of the Palms)

Happy Birthday to my Grandmother!

We’re 350 miles north of Miami, and it’s like an entirely different country (man, how many times have I said that???) I wish I had a way to explain the differences in areas of our nation; we’re back in a small town, with other small towns nearby, and not attached…there’s empty land between the towns. It’s been a really long time since we’ve seen that! And there are dirt roads…only 1 ½ lanes wide (total, not each direction), without overpasses or turning lanes or bus stops. But I must have been in Miami too long, because I found myself thinking someone should develop that vacant land! There are cabbage fields in the nearby area, as well as strawberries.

Park of the Palms is a retirement community sponsored by the Plymouth Brethren, where people can buy homes, or buy or rent multifamily housing, or rent apartments. There’s also an extended care facility. There’s a heated pool, library, dining hall and miniature golf.

But let me back up a little~~the entire team from Florida Bible Church continued on to this project. We’re also working with, Randy, who is RVICS-S, which is means he’s on special assignment, because he’s single. Ron and Rose aren’t here, but are planning on returning in a week or so. We’re all very anxious to see them.

I’m going to get this posted quickly because I want to show you pictures of the bald eagle that we watched yesterday during pop on the patio. Randy had told us that there are a couple bald eagles in the area, and then sure enough one came flying around. We were able to watch him for 15-20 minutes. He was surveying a small lagoon in a dried up lake right in front of us, and at one point he hovered like a humming bird…just hung there, kind not moving anything but his wings, and then he dove into the water. It looked like he fell into the water, and he came up without anything, but he didn’t give up trying. The water isn’t deep, as you can see in one picture there’s a heron standing in it~~it can’t be more than a foot deep! The heron just stood there as the eagle kept working at finding dinner, and as far as we could tell neither got anything. The eagle flew away toward some trees, and then next thing we knew there were two eagles~~one stayed in the distance and the other came up and tried his luck at the puddle/pond again. It was awesome to watch his movements.

I’m going to include many pictures just because I want to! Then I’ll send camp pictures and descriptions later.

A few days after posting this Bob said he didn't think those were eagles we were watching~~he thought they were osprey. So we went online (used to be reading encyclopedias) and sure enough....osprey. We'd been told they look very much alike, but in reading about them, osprey have the white underside, and the banded eyes. Eagles have black bodies. Bummer. But it's still intriguing to watch the osprey, and we see them every afternoon when we're having pop. But that's my correction notice!

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Photos

I chose this one because you can
clearly see his face.

He's beginning to hover...
this is what reminded us of hummingbirds. He would flap his wings backwards, and it would hold him in this shape.

A better look at the hovering...
it looks like he's backpeddling! From this pose he'd just throw himself unto the water....no grace there!

I like this picture because you can see
the eagle and the blue heron, which we think is an icon for persistance. He just stood in that water (and you can see how deep it isn't!) waiting for the perfect fish, while the eagle was doing all that work, waiting for the perfect fish! 'Course the heron was still there two days later, and the eagle had eaten and moved on, but you get the point!