Kayaking with the Eagles on a Stormy Day

We are staying at Ririe Reservoir because it is south of the expected snow, has full-hook-ups so we can catch up with laundry, and is inexpensive. We thought it would be a comfortable place to stay during a stretch of expected rainy and cold weather. But we found it to be so much more! The first day, we knew we were supposed to get rain. But would we have time to get the kayak on the lake (or more importantly--get the kayak back off the lake) before it hit? We loaded up our raincoats and decided to give it a try.

We had just started, when we saw our first bald eagle, sitting on a rock halfway up the cliff on the water's edge. He was looking very regal and patriotic as he didn't seem to be concerned with our passing kayak.

A hundred yards further, we watched as a young eagle flapped his wings to jump up on a rock at the water's edge.

He still has the brown eyes and beak of a young eagle, so different than the steely gray eyes and bright yellow beak of the mature eagle we saw first.

That's when we realized that the eagles were out in force this morning. There are three in the picture below--two in the air and one at the edge of the water. At one time we saw seven different eagles around us at one time. It was so much fun!

Meanwhile, the clouds are building behind us. As we look back, we seen a faint rainbow forming over the edge of the dam.

The good news is that storm is going away from us. The other good news is that we are seeing more eagles as we progress away from the dam. This guy was looking over his shoulder as we floated by.

We've been on the water for an hour now. Even though the clouds are thick, the wind has stopped. We can see those clouds mirrored in the still water in front of us.

We didn't get good pictures of all the eagles we saw, but we kept trying anyway. We have seen over a dozen different birds by now. That includes one that dove into the water, coming out with a fish in his talons. No pictures, but that got the attention of other birds in the area.

We saw some pigeons flying around the tall cliffs on this edge of the lake. It was interesting to watch as two eagles chased and dove towards the smaller birds. Besides fish, we know that eagles also prey on birds. With our binoculars, we saw a large eagle nest nestled on the side of the cliffs. A very loud eagle let the two intruder eagles know they were not welcome near that nest. We got to watch the air-show as the birds were colliding in the sky with talons outstretched.

We are about three miles away from the boat dock, and we are still finding more birds as we progressed down this narrow lake. We estimate that we've seen over twenty different eagles. We are so glad we took the chance and got the kayak in the water this morning!

Ririe Lake is about eight miles long, and we probably would have kayaked the entire length on a less threatening weather day. We certainly enjoyed some beautifully calm water, however, before the storm.

When we looked behind us, we saw the clouds thickening, and getting that angry gray look. We decided it was time to head towards home. But we had to stop at this cliff wall, filled with curious holes. No, we don't know what caused them either.

We got out of the water right at noon, and quickly got the boat dried and loaded into the car. It was less than ten minutes before the skies opened and the rains started. We got out of the water just in time! But we were so glad that we had that window of opportunity to enjoy Ririe Lake! We got some good shoulder exercise, so we could feel good about spending the rest of the day enjoying the storms from the inside of the motor home. That gave us a good excuse to make a double batch of Ranger cookies. We added pecans and chocolate chips, and they were tasty! With our tiny little oven, it took hours to bake that double batch. We bagged most of them up for the freezer, and we'll be enjoying them (hopefully) for weeks. Some times it's nice to have a rainy afternoon!