BALD EAGLE
(Haliaeetus leucocephalus)
I recently updated my bird species life-list and my lifetime total is now 4,150 species. The first bird on my life list, is the Bald Eagle. I don't remember the exact date, but I paid particular notice of seeing a Bald Eagle in the summer of 1960, while taking a ferryboat ride between the city of Vancouver in British Columbia and Nanaimo on Vancouver Island. It was part of a hitch-hiking trip across Canada, between Ontario and British Columbia and back again. with my best buddy at the time, Dan Buddin.
It was a month-long road trip and included a 2-week stay at an uncle's ranch in southern Alberta during haying season. Dan and I humped hay bales for long hours each day, followed by a swim in an irrigation ditch on my uncle's farm, followed by a huge dinner each night. One of the dinners was a late-night beef barbecue on the ranchlands. Those hard-working Alberta ranchers sure could consume a lot of steaks. I was so full after the first steak, that I ended up throwing half of my second steak, over my shoulder, into the scrubland bushes behind us.
Dan and I did take a couple of 2-day train trips through the Rocky Mountains to the west coast and back again as part of the overall hitchhiking adventure.
Please comment if you wish.
Barry the Birder
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