A Recommendation, a Waxwing, and a... well, one more surprise

  The smallest graces and beauties in life often arrive quite unexpectedly. I truly love birds and seeing a variety of them. One result of this is that my current favorite game is Wingspan, a beautifully drawn and well-designed board game which a friend gifted us a few months ago. Somehow competition is combined with beauty and a pinch of education to make a thoroughly enjoyable game experience, although it's too complex for the kids still. But I digress...

  Last week on a walk along a bike trail I saw a flock of Bohemian waxwings. I wouldn't have known their name if I hadn't happened to see this article about it in the Denver Post a few days before, "A rare and beautiful bird is turning up all over Denver this winter." Apparently these waxwings haven't been to Denver since I was a toddler. They were far more beautiful than the rather distant picture below suggests. The two colorings, presumably male and female, were both lovely; and the dozens of waxwings were in no rush to go anywhere else. But this morning...!

Bohemian waxwing

 Driving down Holly Street to drop kids off for school, I saw a bald eagle! I have loved eagles since I was very young, and they always make me think of my granddad because he had a house full of bald eagles (pictures, sculptures, and whatnot). Again, the picture quality below is lacking, but the gift of seeing beautiful birds wherever I'm at was not lacking in any way. Thankfully, we had a couple minutes to get out and take pictures of the bird before I dropped the kids off. Then I went back to look at it again in quietness.

A bald eagle, in Park Hill, Denver

 I said 'quietness', but actually you may notice in the video below that the crows and magpies were thoroughly disturbed that the eagle had entered their normal space. That's what the racket is, but the eagle seems unconcerned with it. And well he should!

 Actually this is the second time in the last several months that we've seen eagles. In November, driving back from Thanksgiving, we saw some bald eagles in Kansas, but they were away across a field. So even though we trespassed into a corn field, we still couldn't get particularly close.