Bald Eagle Count

(for the Barteks) up at 7, dress & cook an egg black with pan soot, eat with hot bread and butter binoculars, book, notebook, 2 baloney sandwiches & a peanutbutter english sparrows singing as I walk to Hotel Yancey pigeons wheel above grand island coffee & the world-herald Saturday 7:30 in their elegant warm cafe Vera Coons comes in her green car we pick up her friend Bea while speaking of Canada geese I hear a cardinal startling, we see a cardinal crows flying we’re driving south on highway 281 cornfields, bright day, temp. 21 hit the Platter Restaurant where George Stoppekotte sits in his pickup he climbs in, we all sit & talk & wait for Bill Schleicher “if they take all the water out of the Platte River, by God, we folks here are gonna sit with our fingers dry” Bill comes with Harley Kandish, shuffle around George & Bill lead off in the pickup, Harley rides with us cross the Platte, gray with ice sunlight heading west sparrow hawk on a low fence “when you talk about wild asparagus, those 2 guys spot it where no one else does” we stop, check out black blobs in the trees, George says they spotted wild geese a magpie, we all drive on — I train my binocs on the passing trees (black Angus in bright yellow corn) stop again, geese “ — put a spot of salt in everything she made” “your dipstick’ll boil that oil eventually then you can’t get the darn varnish out” 2 ducks — scaup? goldeneye? meadowlark in a tree we see an eagle white-headed, gargantuan, in cottonwood by river back — we drink coffee — high spirits — everybody talks at once of Spanish peanuts — postum — people killing eagles being sick — where we’re going — once Harley saw an eagle & a bluebird & a beaver all in the same spot in Colorado & another eagle! closer perched upright, dark-bodied turning its arctic head in the light drive on ducks (buffleheads?) on Bufflehead pond hundreds of geese flap into a field & mass there giant trucks whiz by we’re 49 miles from grand island, turn south pass piles of mallards in a pond goldfinches lilt by turn east pass restored Fort Kearney hey — great horned owl on a telephone pole now he’s sitting on a haystack! “there was a crippled pelican down on Steen Lake a long while” I’ve got pelicans on my socks stop & piss in a refuge Bill says “we saw an immature on a haystack once & he was dead — not a wound on him. maybe he at a poison mouse” thought I heard a woodpecker pecking but it was the pickup cooling off — but there is a fat little downy there, we look — english sparrows out here sounds erupt like a whale under the pond ice stop for lunch here last baloney sandwich, Vera’s coffee, cigarette at a red picnic table by the pond & more sandwiches, pickles, from Vera chickadee sings talk “there’s something about a deer — couldn’t shoot one” “this was back when the Prince of Wales toured the country, they entertained him at Swift & Company. my sister-in-law was secretary to Old Man Swift. well she saw the Prince standing there looking forlorn & took a glass of water up to him & asked if he was thirsty and he was” “I was Secretary of Equitable Finance for 47 years” talk of city politics & economics & ecological considerations, & we leave, drive east glittering corn 3 mergansers on a pond fly off another eagle Platte River iced with curving channels open brown islands, everywhere shit, beautiful round brick barn young bald eagle flapping & soaring up — 2 more, sitting in trees — another, white-headed, closer, sits in massive stillness, then takes off! soars! flashing snow light from tail & head — drive a bit, stop & 3 more are seen sitting among strings & bunches of brown ducks that continually pour into & out of some body of water there “majestic” we say in such majesty so multiplied still majestic in so much left & right of ducks? drive on blue lake changes from brown to silver as we pass “there’s somebody’s little broken dream” we walk into a sanctuary Bill hands out peanuts in the shell points out diamond willow (chipping sparrow), through woods I climb green tower & look out upon islands & channels of the Platte “that’s alkali, you put your finger in it & lick it & it’s just like salt” badger hole wild plum “I don’t stomp em, I just throw em in there stems & all” “ — that’s due process” back to the car — banana, chocolate warm day now talk about Greeks fixing lamb — too much midafternoon, sit & talk motors start “sunflower” “cherry wood” talk, east again loggerhead (?) shrike flies off flicker meadowlarks all over sides of the road chipping sparrow with his white line over eye, black-bordered chestnut cap George saw 7 robins in a tree nothern robin in a russian olive paved road windmills walk to river & scan black spots — all nests blue ice, blue sky straggled brown horizon white posts in the river purple & yellow black hawk hovering over a field marsh hawk?  no, red-tail — fox squirrel way off gray cliffs of snow in the ditch 2 hairies on a post “I wanted to go up to Baribou to see the circus museum” pumphouse with purple shingles shrike goblin shapes of field wood panoramic freight train view nameless little town wave at man burning stumps talk of water & we slowly drive through country wide cornfields keep us from the trees the eagles sit in “I just always have lip-ice” 2 hawks — complex identification discussion, or debate, and I maintain: ferruginous rough-leg nearing doniphan roads zigzag along the cardinal directions following slow northward Platte curve eagle again — flapping & soaring across our path, distant — field of lemon yellow cooling off, sunlight graying Swainson’s hawk above our heads, says Vera “there’s a policeman’s car & it says ‘Whites’ live there” ... “now they collect interest instead of apples” back to the Platter people split off north into city nearly five o’clock clouds lit yellow-gray in the west twelve eagles in our wake & legions not seen, motionless on cottonwood braches they don’t care & I care but it’s ok “beautiful day” “beautiful day” looking into the sun makes it all seem light & dark home — mara & sierra fed ducks today sierra showed me her new blue car