And this immature Bald Eagle. I later learned that this bird had been rescued on the Akwesasne Reservation after someone shot it in the wing and it was brought here for rehabilitation. Part of its wing is now missing so it will never be able to be released. I was told that the Mohawks often visit and sometimes chant to the animals, which seems to have a miraculous calming effect on some of them, especially this eagle:
A Red-Tailed Hawk:
I began walking back toward the path to my car:
And looked for animals which I might have missed or had been unable to get a good picture of:
That's when I saw this sad looking animal. Several tourists insisted it was a Coyote but I thought it had to be a Gray Fox. I found out later that I was right, and that the circling it was doing was a neurological problem and the reason he was here:
A Short-Eared Owl:
I began returning to my car on a different trail but then decided instead to take the shorter one on which I'd come:
But I got to see the back side of the student yurt along the way:
I was headed back to my car on my original trail through forest when I met an employee headed the other way and began asking him questions. He took me back to the pens I had just seen and told me the stories which I've used in these three blog posts:
He also told me about two Snowy Owls which I had missed when on my own. This was the female:
And this was the male - with his rat dinner. He cannot be put with the female because he killed the last one. One worker made it sound as if he did so intentionally but another worker said he just flies so erratically that he had accidentally killed the last female he was with:
I returned to my car on the same path on which I'd entered the refuge, passing the wolves again along my way. It had been a marvelous experience, and all the more so because of the friendly, helpful employee I'd met who went out of his way to give me a personal tour:
No comments:
Post a Comment
Note: Only a member of this blog may post a comment.