We spent the day paddling on the Hudson River. A mature bald eagle flew over us at one point, and two immature juveniles flew low over the water towards us then landed in a tree at water's edge as we went by. We were not looking hard for eagles - these three pretty much put themselves in our line of sight. There are several nests in the area, so it is normal to see at least one eagle in this stretch of the Hudson on a day's paddle.
Osprey, which have become rare sightings in this eagle-dominated stretch, were more present than we have seen before. We saw an active nest on a transmission pole, with one parent sitting close by, and were overflown by a pair of osprey further north. It looks like the osprey and the eagles are doing better at sharing the same space.
As we returned to our launch point at the end of the paddle, we saw someone in a kayak paddling along the opposite shore. The paddler, a woman in a red decked fiberglass kayak, pulled into the same launch point while we were unpacking the day's gear from our boats and getting ready to load them onto the cars. The conversation turned to where we had been paddling and where we were from.
We found out that this woman regularly paddles the stretch of river that we had just been traveling. She had never seen a bald eagle on the Hudson River. This is not the first time we've heard this, but it is confounding. None of us understood how anyone who spends time on that stretch of the Hudson can miss seeing a bird with an 6-9 foot wingspan, a bright white head and tail and a penchant for eating fish.
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