Eagle gifts on a Sunday evening

the late crew still in the water

Sunday was a scorcher (into the 40s) plus some smoke hanging in the air from the new forest fires burning up the Seymour Arm of the Shuswap, and at Mara Lake.  

right at my feet!

While much of the day  involved hiding in the basement to catch the coolest air, as the sun started to set, the temperature began to come back down, and I could see beautiful golden colours emerging in the sky.  

I grabbed bathing suit and towel, thinking to both get a swim, and capture the sun as it was going down. 

an eagle feather waiting for me to find it

As I started walking along the beachfront to where I could hear a bunch of the cousins and niblings playing in the water, I looked down and saw a feather just laying there.   

Not just any old feather.  A beautiful eagle feather.   Just waiting for me to find it.  :-) 

Not one to decline such a gift, I picked it up and continued my walk down the beach.   As I approached the folks already in the water, I started waving my feather and yelling "An eagle feather".  They were yelling something back at me like, "An eagle".   And I was saying "Yup!   An eagle feather."  

Betty Blanche is looking up at the eagle...i couldn't see it yet

But as I got closer, I saw that they had not noticed the feather I was waving at them, but were pointing up to a tree on the beach, where they were telling me an eagle was perched.  Possibly contemplating an evening meal. 

Can you find the eagle here?

I had trouble seeing where it was, so Tim (who was out in the water), made me keep moving around on the beach til I had the right angle to see where it was perched. 

  
Difficult to see with my naked eyes, but once I could see where it was, I knew that the zoom on the camera would do the trick!  So I dragged a beach chair down to the waterline, and set myself up.   The eagle was kind enough to stay put for me, and I got the gift of a feather, of some of its time, and a few closeup photos!  

I also got a  minute of video footage (a bit shaky, as I was using 128x zoom with no tripod!)

Here is the link:  https://youtu.be/tdZ7vLpbkH0