Chasing eagles at Pomme De Terre Lake

We spent three nights in the Outlet Campground off Lake Pomme De Terre. While we couldn't see the lake from our campground, we enjoyed the Pomme De Terre River that flows out of the lake. On our last day, we finally found time to kayak down this little river with almost no current.

This was the river that comes off the dam that forms Lake Pomme De Terre. If they decided to let water out of the dam this day, this glass-like river would suddenly have a current that would make it very difficult for us to paddle back home.

So we crossed our fingers and oars and hoped that we could easily paddle back to our campground when we decided to turn around. Until then, we were entertained by the animals along the river banks, like this big blue heron . . .

and the occasional turtle sunning on the logs in the river.

But the most fun was following an eagle that continued to lead us downstream. He would land on a branch over the river ahead of us, and then fly off about the time we got close enough to take a good picture. He continued to tease us so we continued to paddle.

With temperatures in the 70s and beautiful fall foliage, it was a great kayak trip. But we finally had enough sense to turn back toward home, even though we never got our picture of that eagle.

We paddled until we saw our new little trailer, hiding among the trees on the banks of the river.

On another day, we decided to kayak at the Pittsburg Corp of Engineer park at the very end of Pomme De Terre Lake. A big flock of migrating white pelicans joined us on the tip of the lake. While they look completely white when they are standing, their black wing tips show up when they fly overhead.

White pelicans with a backdrop of nice fall foliage made for a nice picture.

No motor boats can get to this tip of the lake, and we found lots of birds and turtles enjoying the peaceful solitude.

The cormorants didn't seem to mind when we coasted in close for a picture.

But we were especially interested in all the eagles that like this lake. We first spotted this one on the beach.

Then we spotted this younger eagle that was still sporting some brown feathers on its head. We were concentrating on getting close enough for a picture, and we completely lost track of how shallow the water was beneath our boat.

Mark was steering us into the right angle for Denisa to get a picture of that eagle in the sunlight framed by the red foliage. Then we suddenly came to a hard stop. We were grounded on a mud bank and we were stuck. We're pretty experienced at getting out of such jams, but this one was especially tricky. It was the kind of mud that we would sink up to our knees if we had to get out of the boat. So we worked and rocked the boat a long time before we managed to paddle ourselves out of this muddy muck. But we got the picture!

We enjoyed chasing the eagles at Pomme De Terre Lake. And we managed to "capture" this one in a picture. We have enjoyed our three days at Pomme De Terre--the "apple of the earth."