Eagles

Yesterday Pat and I took advantage of the rare beautiful day and took our annual "leaf drive." The leaves were well past their peak, but we always enjoy getting out on the curvy, little-traveled, roads of NE Iowa.

The first observation of note was this lone eagle perched in a tree.

Further on, we saw another in a tree, then two soaring over the Mississippi River at Guttenberg while we were eating lunch. On the way home, there were two in a field, feasting on a dead deer.

Altogether, we saw six eagles in four different locations. A new eagle-spotting record for us!

The brilliant yellows and reds had faded from the leaves but there were many shades of browns. Still, they were pretty to us.

We only saw about three combines in the fields. Harvesting in Iowa is nearly three weeks behind normal, due to wet weather. Even the soybeans are not all harvested yet.