Eagle sighting in Fairport Harbor...

Saturday, February 19, 2011

John and I had talked about hiking some time during the day and I was thinking it would be a good opportunity to score a double so I went to my office and climbed on the trainer for a 70-minute ride. Shorty after showering, he called. “Hey man…can’t hike today. Got some free skiing time at Brandywine and I’m going to take Scott and give it a try,” he said.

Now…it’d been in the 50’s for the past several days and all the snow had melted and I was thinking snow was pretty important to skiing and suggested as much to John. “Yeah…well…they can make more,” he said. I pondered this for a second and said, “but doesn’t it need to be like…freezing?” His timing was spectacular. A week ago there had been two feet of the white stuff on the ground…but that’s John…never the brightest crayon in the box.

“How about tomorrow for the hike?” he asked, which I said was not a problem. Still, I wanted to get in a hike, but I was also interested in getting out to Fairport Harbor. There had been a story in the PD that morning about the ice that was blocking the Grand River. This is a common occurrence with sudden warming trends in the late days of winter, but I’d never bothered to go and see or photograph the incident. I was thinking I might get lucky while there and spot the eagles that had been reported as flying in that area. I asked Holly to join me, but she said she was too cold.

I drove down near the Lake Metropark Beach in Fairport and parked my car. I quickly spotted the massive ice blockage at the mouth of the river…I’m no Sherlock Holmes – it would be pretty hard to miss…and walked out on the break wall to take some pictures. Looking east towards the Perry Nuclear Power Plant, I noticed a large bird flying over the ice inside the break wall. It was too far away to identify, but I’ve got a nice telephoto lens so I started snapping pictures. I was reasonably sure it was an eagle, but I’d know for sure when I returned home later and downloaded the shots.

I waited for another 20 minutes hoping the ‘probably an eagle’ returned, but without success. I gave it up and headed for the North Chagrin Reservation and hike to determine the conditions of the trails for tomorrow’s run and whether I would recommend it for Holly to hike.

The trails there were quite icy and would make hiking and/or running treacherous. I elected to do some off-trail hiking, which was no problem if you’re okay with mud…and I am. I returned home after an hour of this to tell Holly that I’d seen an eagle. Her ‘it’s just a bird’ retort was expected…and delivered, but I was excited to down load the pictures and to discover that I’d actually gotten a couple of pretty good shots.

Some times you just get lucky.

Bike duration: 70 minutes. Hike duration: 60 minutes.
Training Heart Rate: 130 biking. 90 hiking.
Calories burned during workout: 1050 biking. 300 hiking.