33. The eagles of Lake Purdy

It was probably fall 2007, late evening, when Shaving 4 and I saw a large bird circling high overhead. The bird looked so large and so high that I wondered out loud if it might not be an eagle.

November 8, 2008, a clear Saturday morning, Shaving 3 had agreed to take a cruise with the new outboard as I promised to ~ not fish (= trolling only). This time there was no doubt. Two bald eagles, white heads & all, were cruising tree top high around the west end of Goat Island. They were in plain view for some time and one actually took a swing at something on the surface not far from another boat up against the mountain. We returned to the dock and ask Gary if he knew he had two bald eagles out there. His reply was “TWO??” Our reply was “two!”

I called Ken M., chairman of biology and vertebrate adventurer, to report the sighting. He said it was the time of year that they paired up for nesting.

It was likely 2009 when I ask Gary if anybody had been seeing the eagles. Gary said “there’s a nest”. I say “where?” Gary looks up the lake, down the lake, then at me and says “I don’t tell everybody” (which of course meant don’t you tell everybody). Fair enough.

Since Ken M. had speculated on future nesting I had been trying to guess where eagles would decide to put a nest. In the event I was completely, wrong but the location they picked made sense upon further reflection.

The eagles’ presence, if not nest location, became widely known when what has got to be one of, if not the, weirdest ever eagle photograph hit the Birmingham News September 1, 2010.

 

Standing shoulder to shoulder, in knee (?) deep water, on the lake’s edge with a real wading bird in the foreground. [It just now occurs to me that the heron eats fish too and maybe the eagles were simply studying an alternative technique]. That the photo produced a predictable flurry of local nature interest could be determined by simply listening to the marina’s end of the phone calls. “Yes ma’am we see them around. No ma’am it’s hard to tell just when or where. Etc, etc.” I told them to figure out when the slowest day was for boat rentals and tell interested bird watchers frequent sightings were then…far shore. He spoke of one inquiry where he told the caller he hadn’t seen them in a while and, just then, an eagle flies through the parking lot and landed in a nearby tree.

            By spring 2011 Gary said a photographer had nest photos and there were young. They appear to continue to make a go of this location.

And other locations. Around 9AM, about two years ago, Shaving 4 & I are pulling out of ‘upper Choccolocco’ and a big bird circles away from us tree top high. I was saying things like “What the heck is that? Not exactly right for a heron.”  Apparently overhearing the conversation of undue respect, the bird did a slow left hand bank over our heads just so we could get a good look at whose presence we were in.

            Saw 5 ospreys at Lake Purdy three days ago.

ML

4/15/14

32."Bats on the ground, bats on the ground...

….Nambou, there are BATS… ON…. THE…. GROUND!! Let’s go pick them up before the Uncles get them.”

So spoke Nambou (the lab tech), riding up on his motor cycle, to Nambou (the volunteer, aka Shaving 4) as we walked home from getting a coke & checking on the tailor’s progress on Mrs. Sawed-off’s new local fashions.

[Technical note: all village second sons are Nambou which leads to “uncles” being numerous]

Nambou’s (the lab tech) excitement was not out of the blue as about 50 yards down the road a large tree had been felled (power company cutting trees along the road for the rumored coming of electricity to Bitchabe) with a flock (?) of fruit bats circling above it. What did not compute was a) why one would want to pick up fruit bats and b) what were some doing on the ground in any event?

Shortly after Nambou’s (the lab tech) call to action we passed two kids carrying about four bats each. This indicated the wide spread enthusiasm for the fruit bats (to eat) and that they were on the ground seemed a more parsimonious explanation of two 7 year olds with eight bats between them than the only alternative; the kids could fly. [But then again…“Africa has many mysteries” (Wadja)]

 

This was not the last time non-bird flying food came up. Yao, our excellent driver while in Lomé, on our night time run to the airport said that the largish insects flying around the street lights were good to eat. Mrs. Sawed-off ask what they tasted like –[I know what you’re thinking…WRONG] –Yao said crickets; mole crickets to be exact. And his description of the local mole cricket matched exactly the mole cricket from around these parts.

 

When first assigned to Africa, the Peace Corp said there was no dangerous wildlife in Togo….except the snakes. Without going laundry list, the western green mamba (some deaths in the 30 minute range) and the African rock python (including the ingestion of a few people) come to mind. That theses players are not merely rumored is the Peace Corp volunteer that got clipped by a small green mamba on the ground at night (go figure) who recalled hallucinating on the ride to the antivenin. She lived. Then there was the volunteer (I met this guy) who shortly after his arrival saw an African rock python eating a goat.

The Togolese are surprisingly matter of fact about snakes despite, perhaps because of, their proximity to some very serious players. They are not oblivious to the problem as Shaving 4 relayed an early rhyme he heard; “First you cry, then you die”. However there is none of the over-the-top apprehension one encounters in America. As example, we were visiting a coffee grower (Kodjo) in the hills above Kpalima. We took a short walk down hill and then back up. On the return, Yao reaches down and picked up the tail end of a recently shed snake skin lying on top of a bush about 18 inches off the ground; nobody spotted the skin when we first passed the spot about 10 minutes earlier. Yao was of the opinion that it was the shed of a green mamba. What he did next was reach up and shake the end of a couple of tree limbs within reach; the purpose being clearly to get whoever left the skin moving so we could see it.  As I said, the Togolese are matter of fact about their snakes.

Along with being matter of fact about snakes Bitchabeians are knowledgeable on some details. In listening it became clear they were making a distinction between “python” and “boa”. I was more interested in exactly what they were referring to than delivering a suspect taxonomic point of ‘no boas in Africa’. Mrs Sawed-off conducted several cross cultural interviews but I took this opportunity to toss in a question of. …How long is a “python” and how long is a “boa”. Kokou (who it turns out was the one who came up with the questions for the internet) said the “python” was about one meter. Nambou (the lab tech) added may be up to 1.5 meters. The “boa” was up to 21 feet, but not so common. This pretty much sealed the “python” as a ball python and their “boa” as the African rock python.

 

Though more or less surrounded by deadly mambas and human eating boa/pythons for ten days, the point of my greatest concern came upon arrival when you turn in those one page forms to customs regarding where you’re from, why you’re here, any weird stuff with you? The guy takes one look at what I handed him and tells me it is “offensive”. Now, in my wild and crazy youth (see next week), I am not above giving “offense” to bureaucrats. HOWEVER, being so far from home and having Shaving 4 on the other side of the security zone giving “offense” was THE LAST THING I WISHED TO DO!!

It turned out that the problem was I had filled the form out in pencil which was not proper. Live & learn.

 

ML

4/8/14